Battle Royale: Digimon
by Miss Anonymous hp
Summary: A Digimon version of the Japanese film "Battle Royale." Davis, TK, and Kari are stuck on an island with the rest of their 9th grade class, separated from their digimon and the other digidestined, and it's kill or be killed. Only one of them can make it out alive. Can they do it? No character bashing. COMPLETE.
1. The Field Trip

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon nor do I own Battle Royale. All of the characters (and there are a lot of them) are mine, except for the ones that you recognize from Digimon.

**Summary:** A Digimon version of the Japanese film "Battle Royale." Davis, TK, and Kari are stuck on an island with the rest of their 9th grade class, separated from their digimon and the other digidestined, and it's kill or be killed. Only one of them can make it out alive. Can they do it? No character bashing.

**Author's Note**: Firstly, a warning. For those of you who have seen the film, this will not be surprising to you, but for those of you who haven't... This story will contain a lot of violence, death, blood, and gruesome imagery. If this is not your kind of thing, back out now. The story will also contain light cursing. I've kept it light to try to keep it in the spirit of Digimon, but some scenes just kind of screamed for it.

Secondly, there is _no_ character bashing in this story. I know many stories that have TK, Davis, and Kari at the forefront usually end up with one of them being villainized or something else equally silly. This is not the case here. There will be hints of Takari, Daikari, and even Daikeru if you wish to look for it. However, there will be no mutual romance at any point in the story between these three characters. A few mentions of one-sided affections, but that's it. This story is about _friendship_ in the face of some of the worst circumstances possible.

Thirdly (and yes, this is getting quite long), I use the dub names and dub information for my story, but I do try to make the location obviously Japan. Because of this, the amount of time between seasons are _4_ years instead of _3_ like in the original.

Lastly... Sadly, the digimon are not involved in the story. They _do_ exist, and the characters were still digidestined, but the digimon do not have a big role to play.

So, please review! I love constructive criticism and just little notes of encouragement! Mostly, I would just like you to...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Battle Royale:** **Digimon**

**Chapter One: The Field Trip**

At the turn of the millennium, Japan was in a state of near collapse. Unemployment was sky high at 15%; millions of people were out of work. Poverty led to the youth of the nation acting out, attacking their teachers and boycotting classes. Youth crime started to soar. Many blamed this on the three terrorist attacks that Japan suffered in 1994, 1998, and 2002, attacks that were deemed to be the work of "monsters" at first, a story – many realized – that could have only been thought up by the children that they were starting to fear. Losing confidence in the nation's youth, the adults looked to the government for some sort of solution. The government responded with a drastic and brutal new measure.

FINAL EDUCATION REFORM ACT

Also known as:

THE BATTLE ROYALE ACT

The act dictates that a randomly selected class from grades 7 to 12 will be taken to an undisclosed location to participate in a three day free for all. All students must fight each other to the death until there is only one survivor in the game. The act was proposed and then passed, and now it is time for the first class to be chosen.

x X x

Monday, August 1, 2004. Odaiba Middle School.

The 9th grade class was gathered outside the school as they waited to be loaded onto the busses. The teachers were trying to keep them all under control, but they were all talking too excitedly to really be able to hear the teacher's instructions despite the fact that it was still very early in the morning. On any other day, most of them would still be too tired to string together two sentences. But not today. Today, they were all headed out for a three-day class trip to Kyoto; it was a 72 hour reprieve for the parents of the loud teens.

"What are you doing?" Kari Kamiya asked.

She was looking over her best friend's shoulder as he fiddled around with his D-Terminal. Her face was flushed from a slight fever that she was fighting, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from going on this trip. She remembered how much fun Yolei had when she had gone, and it was bad enough that the trip had been cancelled last year due to bad weather. She didn't want to miss her chance this time! TK Takaishi looked up with a small smile, and he shifted closer to her so that he could show her the email he was composing on the little computer device.

"I'm sending Matt a reminder not to make any plans for Thursday," TK said, finishing up the message. "I don't want to miss our annual trip to Shibuya to honor Pumpkinmon and Gotsumon because of this."

Davis Motomiya leaned in to look at the message as well, but TK had already hit send before he got a good look at it. He scowled lightly at his golden-haired friend before letting out a long sigh.

"Kind of sucks that we have to miss the picnic tonight," he said.

Kari nodded. "But it's for a good reason, and everybody understands why we can't be there. We'll just have to have our own memorial and celebration when we get back."

TK moved to put his D-Terminal into his front jean pocket. "That's what me and Matt are doing," he said. "Unless he forgets and schedules band practice during our hangout time again."

He rolled his eyes lightly, obviously not that annoyed. It wasn't a common occurrence, but once had been enough for TK to never let his big brother live it down again. Whenever he wanted something, he would always remind Matt about that one time that he had left him waiting at the subway station for three hours. Considering how bad Matt had felt afterward, it usually worked, too.

"Well, while TS and his brother are off doing whatever," Davis said, sliding his arm across Kari's shoulders, "why don't you and I celebrate together?"

Kari shrugged his arm off with a patient smile. "Actually, Yolei was talking about having another picnic on Saturday for everybody, and Tai thought it was a good idea."

Davis groaned, and TK laughed at him. Finally, the doors to the bus opened, and all of the students shuffled closer, ready to pile on board so that they could head out. But Mr Fujiyama, their teacher, held up his hand to get all of their attention.

"Wait, class!" he called out. He walked up to the bus driver that had just stepped off of the 50-seater and handed him a camera. "Can you get a photo of us all?"

"Oh, can you get one on this too?" Kari asked, stepping forward and pulling her camera off of her neck to give to the driver.

Most of the class groaned at the idea of a class photo, but TK and Davis shared an amused glance at Kari's excitement. The 40 students joined together in a group with Mr Fujiyama in the middle. Davis threw an arm around TK and Kari's shoulders, and the three friends beamed happily as the driver took a photo on both cameras before passing them back to their respective owners.

"Let's go!" Davis called out.

He led the near stampede onto the bus and headed straight to the back with the other troublemakers of the class. Nobu Narita crashed into the gogglehead as he joined him. He was a fellow soccer player and Davis's best non-digidestined friend. Davis grunted as he was nearly crushed, and he looked around to realize that he had been separated from TK and Kari. But much to the soccer player's pleasure, they hadn't grabbed their own romantic bench away from him. Instead, Kari was sitting with her friend Minami Fukazawa as they giggled over the picture that Kari was showing off on her camera, and TK was near the front of the bus with a few of the basketball team including Tenchi Arai, Fumiki "Mickey" Ito, and Gai Kudo.

The bus took off with a lurch, and Nobu led the class in a loud cheer as they started on their journey. Nobody – not the troublemakers who had convinced Mr Fujiyama to sit in the back with them, not the gang of bad kids who were figuring out how many banned items they had managed to sneak into their bags, not the Yearbook staff who was giggling over Kari's picture, not the dorks who were using this time to study, not the basketball all-stars who were excitedly talking about this year's championship – _Nobody_ realized that this trip was going to change their lives…

Except for the bus driver and tour guide who stood at the front of the bus, a grave expression on their faces. Even Mr Fujiyama was in the dark as they continued forward toward what he thought was Kyoto. He loved these kids. He had since he had mentored most of them in summer camp. But he noticed something strange as they headed out onto the highway. The road, for some reason, was not only void of any other cars, but it was also lined with military jeeps. He cocked his head to the side, confused.

"Mr Fujiyama! We're going to have free time to roam around, right?" Davis asked, oblivious to what was going on outside the bus.

"Aw, man! You're not going to make us sit in on a bunch of boring lectures, are you?" Nobu continued.

Mr Fujiyama shook his head of his distraction before laughing. "Don't worry. There will be plenty of mindless breaks from the educational part of the trip."

Nobu looked at Davis. "He knows us too well."

Davis laughed before getting up to walk through the aisle toward Kari. Mr Fujiyama didn't even bother to tell him to sit down. Everybody else was seat swapping as they saw fit, so he knew that the warning would fall on deaf ears. Davis leaned against the back of Kari's seat to see what she was looking at.

"Is that the class picture?" he asked.

Kari looked up at him and grinned before she held out the camera. "Yeah, you want to see?"

He took the camera from her, grinning too, as he took in the picture. That was until he saw that Nobu had been standing behind him, giving him bunny ears. He glared over his shoulder.

"Nobu!"

"I'm innocent!" he swore.

Kari and Minami laughed. Davis sent a rude gesture toward the back of the bus, and Kari rolled her eyes before she got up and grabbed his wrist.

"C'mon," she said as she started to drag him toward the front of the bus. She muttered, "Excuse me," to each of the students that they pushed past they until they finally got to where TK was sitting. He and Gai were leaning forward as they looked over the back of Tenchi and Mickey's seat having an animated discussion. Davis reached forward and tapped Gai on the shoulder.

"Move it," he said without preamble.

TK looked over at him and gave him an unimpressed look. "Davis," he sighed.

Gai rolled his eyes at Davis's attitude, but as a sign that he was used to this, he got up without much argument and moved to sit in the seat across the aisle from Mickey. Kari adopted an apologetic look as she slid in next to TK, and Davis squeezed his way into the same bench next to Kari.

"Sorry about that," Kari said.

TK smiled and shook his head. "He'll get over it. What's up?"

"I wanted to show you this," she said, handing the camera over so that he could see.

He grinned as he studied the class photo. Kari brought a hand up to try to subtly cough, but that was kind of hard when she was sandwiched between two very observant boys.

"You still sick?" Davis asked.

"No…"

Ignoring her, TK brought a hand to her forehead to check for himself. He made a concerned noise as he brought his hand back down.

"You're still a little warm," he pointed out.

"I'm fine," she promised, looking between them. "Really. My medicine is in my bag, and I'm not contagious anymore, and even my doctor said it was okay that I go as long as I didn't do any rigorous activity."

TK and Davis exchanged a look over her head, making a silent pact to make sure that she didn't go against the doctor's wishes. Kari rolled her eyes, finding them teaming up against her to be almost more annoying than them fighting over her. Either way, she couldn't win, and yet she loved them both still. She nudged TK and gestured to her camera to make him grab it before she guided his hand up in the air over their heads.

"Stop worrying," she demanded. "And say cheese!"

Davis and TK leaned in closer to Kari and grinned up at the camera before TK snapped the picture. Kari took the camera into her hands and flipped it over to look at the viewing screen. She smiled and looked at her two friends.

"That's a good one," she said.

But before TK and Davis could get a good look at it, the bus entered a tunnel and everything within the bus went dark. Davis groaned.

"Great, now I can't see anything!"

TK laughed and moved to get up. "Hold on, I have a flashlight in my bag. Davis, switch with me," he said, shuffling past Kari and Davis to get to the aisle where his bag had been dropped.

Davis rolled his eyes but listened as he moved to take the window seat so that Kari remained squished in the middle. The last thing TK remembered was sitting on the edge of their bench seat, facing the aisle, and digging in his bag as he looked for that flashlight before he passed out. And he wasn't the only one, either.

The dark bus filled slowly with an undetectable gas, lulling all of the students and Mr Fujiyama into an easy rest. Only the bus driver and tour guide at the front of the bus were unaffected thanks to the gas masks they had on their faces. The bus kept driving, heading toward its undisclosed destination, but definitely not heading toward Kyoto. No, the students of Odaiba Middle School had a different destiny tonight.

Of course, the people in charge had not exactly anticipated the power of the digidestined. As TK rest there, sleeping with his head against the back of their bench seat as he sat there sideways with his legs stretched out across the aisle, his digivice on his belt started to beep quietly. And then a small flash of light exploded from it, illuminating TK's face, before dying down just as quickly. Almost immediately, TK started to rouse from his sleep. Confused and hazy, he looked around the bus, trying to figure out what was going on. Everybody was asleep. Some students were even dumped in the middle of the aisle, as if they had fallen out of their seats and not woken up.

He looked toward the front of the bus, and he could see the tour guide standing there, her back straight as a needle. She turned her head slightly to address the driver, and TK caught sight of the gas mask on her face. He tried not to panic. TK looked over his shoulder at Davis and Kari. Davis had his face pressed against the window, completely out, and Kari was leaning against TK, using the space between his shoulder blades as a pillow. He quietly reached behind him to shake Kari's knee, trying to rouse her, but she didn't even react.

Something wasn't right and TK had been a digidestined long enough to know when not to question his instincts. Quietly, he pulled his D-Terminal out of his pocket and quickly wrote out a message to Matt. He was so busy compiling the message that he did not hear the tour guide walking up the aisle toward him until it was too late. He saw something coming towards him out of the corner of his eye. The baton hit him across the head, hard.

His only solace was that he had been able to hit SEND before everything went black.

* * *

Next Chapter: 1 Down, 41 to Go


	2. 1 Down, 41 to Go

**Disclaimer**: I still do not own Digimon or Battle Royale! Probably a good thing. Can you imagine the chaos I'd cause by bringing these two together in canon?

**Author's Note**: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! The update schedule for this story will be pretty quick. I don't plan on dragging this out the way I am with _Blurring Boundaries_ for those of who are reading both. The chapters for this story will be approximately this length from now on. The first chapter is the shortest of the bunch. And as you can see in this chapter, we do get the other characters of Digimon involved, but they will not be the focus. The only thing you need to know about them is that I've decided to go with canon, which means that there is (VERY light) Sorato. Anywho...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Two: 1 Down, 41 to Go**

"Matt, c'mon," Takashi said, as he followed his band mate down the hallway. "We could use the extra practice."

"I told you, man," Matt said. "I can't tonight. Tomorrow, sure. Wednesday, definitely. But Thursday and the rest of the weekend? Busy again. It's not like I do this all the time. I just have some stuff planned, that's all."

"Yeah, stuff you won't talk about," Akita pointed out.

Matt just shook his head as he resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his two friends. Sometimes, they could obsess over the band even more than him, and he was the one that would schedule double practice if they messed up even a single chord. Even so, no amount of their complaining was going to make him back out of the plans for today. It was August 1; another anniversary for the digidestined commemorating the day that they defeated VenomMyotismon. Even though his little brother, Kari, and Davis couldn't make it to the picnic tonight didn't mean that they were going to cancel. They would just hold another celebration this weekend.

He walked up to his car and started to fiddle with his keys when Yutaka suddenly appeared, joining the rest of his band. Matt groaned, ready to hear another lecture about how they need the practice, but Yutaka didn't even mention music as he shoved the newspaper into Matt's hands.

"Have you seen the paper?" he asked. "It's sick!"

Matt looked at him confused. "What are you talking about?"

"What is who talking about?" Tai asked, joining the four of them.

He gave his best friend a strange look. "What are you doing here?"

Tai went slightly pink. "Ah… I was hoping for a ride…" He cleared his throat. "My car isn't working again."

"Again?" Matt laughed. "What do you do to that thing?"

"Nothing!" he protested. "It just doesn't like me…"

"Guys!" Yutaka said, interrupting them. "I'm serious. Check the paper. The government is _sick_. They passed that damn law!"

"What law?" Tai asked, clueless.

Matt would have liked to tease him about his cluelessness, but even he had a blank stare as he looked between his band members. Yutaka seemed like he was the only one who knew what was going on if Takashi and Akira's confused looks said anything. Yutaka rolled his eyes and pointed at the headline.

"_Battle Royale begins today_," Matt read aloud. He sent Yutaka a questioning look, wanting the short version instead of being forced to read the entire article that was with it.

"It's this _sick_ law—"

"So, you've said once or twice," Takashi quipped.

"—where a random class in middle or high school will be chosen and forced to fight to the death," Yutaka explained.

Tai made a disgusted face. "Are you serious?"

"Like I said, _sick_."

Matt's eyes scanned the paper quickly, but there wasn't any mention about which school or class had been chosen. He handed the paper back to Yutaka and nodded to his band before moving to get into the car.

"We'll talk about practice later," he promised as Tai joined him in the passenger seat. He started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

"You think it's real?" Tai asked. "I mean, would they really make kids fight?"

Matt shrugged. "It's a weird world… I hope not, though…" He ran a hand through his hair. "At least we know where TK, Kari, and Davis are… But now I kind of want to check on the others."

Tai nodded. "Me too. But we'll see them at the picnic. I'm sure if someone that we knew was involved, we'd have heard about it by now."

"True," Matt said, feeling better already. "Oh, can you grab my D-Terminal out of the glove compartment and check my messages?"

Tai punched it open without hesitation. The orange light was blinking, signaling the fact that it had a message waiting to be read. Tai flipped it open and brought it up before smiling.

"It's from TK," he said before reading off, "_Hey, Matt. Don't forget about our plans on Thursday or else! See you when I get back. I'll bring you back something. Maybe a comb. Love ya, TK._" He snorted. "Or else? Or else what?"

Matt shrugged. "Or else I'll probably have to buy him another video game. Though with that quip about the comb, I think I'm never gonna get him another gift again."

Tai laughed. "It just means he knows you!"

Matt reached over to punch his friend in the arm.

"Ow!" he said, but he was still laughing before looking back at the D-Terminal. The light was still going off. "There's another message… also from TK."

He opened this one, but he didn't read it off right away. Instead, his face went pale, and he looked up toward the highway before shutting the D-Terminal. Matt shot him a confused look.

"What's going on? What is it?"

Tai cleared his throat, trying to keep it together, but as he spoke, his voice came out in an unsteady waver. "It's, uh… I'm gonna just… Yknow… wait until you're not driving to, uh… Yknow…"

Matt didn't waste a second. He knew that something was wrong. He pulled off of the road and parked in the first parking lot he could find before he yanked the D-Terminal away from him. He flipped it open and found the most recent message.

"_Something's wrong. I don't think we're heading to Kyoto. They knocked us all out. Davis and Kari, too. We're heading out of the city, not sure where. Saw a sign for Haneda Air, though. I think we're in some serious troub" _

The message just cut off as if he had been interrupted while typing it up. Matt gripped the D-Terminal so tightly in his hands that he could hear the plastic starting to crack, and Tai had to manually pry the little device away from him. For a long moment, neither brother said anything. And then Matt managed to suck in a shaky breath as he realized he had forgotten to breathe, and he wasn't exactly surprised to find panicked tears in his eyes.

"Tai…"

"Maybe it's not what we think," Tai said. "Maybe we're jumping to conclusions. Maybe it's just a digimon attack, or maybe he's just messing with us."

Matt didn't even answer him. They both knew that TK wouldn't joke like this. Sure, his little brother might con him into buying him video games here and there, but this sick type of humor was just not his style. If he was saying that he was in trouble, then he was. Simple as that. And Matt found it pretty sick and wrong that he was _hoping_ that it was just a digimon or a kidnapping or even a hijacking…

Tai's cell phone suddenly began to ring. The former gogglehead fumbled with it in his pocket for a moment before he managed to get a glance at who was calling. He let loose a disappointed sigh before he answered it.

"Hey, Mom," he said quickly, "can I call you back—?" Something that he heard on the other end of the line cut him off quickly. Matt gave him a confused and then concerned look as Tai's face somehow lost even more color. Tai closed his eyes painfully before he whispered, "Are you sure?" But he didn't appear to expect any sort of response in the negative as he took in a shaky breath. "Oh god… Yeah… Okay… Yeah… Wait, no." A sudden determined glint entered his watery eyes. "No, I can't. I have to go see Izzy. I'm sorry, Mom. I love you." And then he hung up.

Matt stared at him, waiting for some sort of explanation, but it took Tai several moments before he managed to get his emotions under control long enough to realize that his best friend was waiting for him to say something. He swallowed in a breath before looking over at him.

"My parents just… got the call," Tai said, his throat tight. "Kari's class was, uh… chosen for…"

"Battle Royale," Matt finished faintly.

x X x

Hours later, all nine of the remaining digidestined were piled inside the Izumi apartment. Mr and Mrs Izumi were away on a romantic holiday. They had known that this was the week of the digidestined's anniversary and assumed that it would be the perfect time to leave their son alone while he had all his friends to keep him occupied. They had obviously not foreseen this happening. Not that anyone did.

Needless to say, the picnic was cancelled. Tai had pretty much demanded that Izzy head to his place, not that he would have ever refused. But the job hadn't been as easy as Tai had hoped. Izzy was trying to lock onto TK, Kari, and Davis's digivice signal, but he immediately realized that they were no longer in Tokyo. It seemed as though TK's assessment that they were heading toward the airport had most likely been correct. And then, worse, Izzy had realized that they were no longer in Japan.

"They could be anywhere!" Mimi cried.

And sadly, it was true, but Izzy refused to give up. Ken and Yolei were sitting on either side of him as all three of their fingers flew across each of their own keyboards. Izzy had one of the most sophisticated systems for a mere 11th grader, but he had always been pretty advanced. Ken and Yolei weren't too bad themselves, but everybody else was mostly just there because they couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Cody was staring at the wall listlessly. Tai and Matt were taking turns wearing a hole through the floor from their pacing and staring gloomily out the window.

None of their parents knew what was going on. At this point, even the digidestined weren't sure what was going on except for that sparse information that the government officials had given to the Kamiyas, Motomiyas, and Nancy Takaishi and what TK's email had said. It wasn't a whole lot to go on to try to piece together exactly what was happening right this moment. Because of that, they didn't think that telling their parents that one of their best friends was attempting to track down their children using the signal from their digivice so that they could then launch a rescue attempt was exactly appropriate.

If they failed…

"I found them!" Izzy announced.

Sora, who had started to fall asleep against the living room bookshelf, jerked awake, and everybody ran over to the computer. The system was hooked up to the flat screen television mounted on the wall, allowing everybody to see what was on Izzy's screen. Three red dots were sitting very close to each other on the world map that Izzy had up, and it was a long moment before anyone could speak.

"Fiji?" Cody asked, shocked. "They're in Fiji?"

"Looks like one of the uninhabited islands," Joe said thoughtfully.

"I don't care where they are," Matt said. "Let's get going!"

"I… I'm not sure we can," Ken said hesitantly, his face twisted in anger.

"What do you mean we can't!?" Tai snapped.

Ken scooted back in slight fear. "I can't find a single Digital Port down there."

"How is that even possible?" Sora asked. "I thought all you needed was a computer to create a Digital Port!"

"Not always," Izzy said. "And Ken's right. I'm not finding anything that could get us a direct route there."

"Then we'll fly," Mimi said easily. "Just like you all did before."

"Without Davis, we don't have access to Imperialdramon," Ken said quietly.

Yolei whined softly. "And if we fly on our digimon without him, it could take us _two days_ if not longer to get there!"

"What if we just took a plane?" Joe asked.

"Almost 11 hours," Izzy responded solemnly. "But by then…"

"…it could be too late," Cody finished, looking quite pale.

Matt fell back against the wall and slid to the floor. "Oh god…"

"What do we do?" Sora asked. "We can't just give up."

"We don't," Joe said. "We try to help them from here. Izzy—?"

With a renewed sense of hope, Izzy's eyes lit up as he nodded eagerly. "Right! This is government run, so there has to be some sort of government surveillance… And surveillance can be hacked into."

He was muttering to himself as his fingers flew across the keyboard again. The map on the screen was zeroing in on the island that the three signals were coming from. For a long moment, it looked like nothing was happening. In the corner of the screen, they could see a lot of words and numbers flying by as Izzy typed in rapid succession. And then, quite suddenly, the screen changed.

On the right side of the screen, 42 boxes were lined up in two rows of 21. Each box had a portrait of one of the students, their name, a number, a bar that looked a lot like a heart monitor, and another bar that looked a lot like a sound mixer. Each of the boxes was listed as INACTIVE at the moment. The rest of the screen was filled with multiple images of an island, multiple camera angles, scattered all around. And the images kept rotating, changing, a sign that there were hundreds of cameras around the island.

"I'm in," Izzy muttered, sounding stunned at his own breakthrough. "Now, we see… what they see…"

Tai grabbed the back of Izzy's chair, his knuckles going white from how tight his grip was at the moment. "Does this mean… Can you get them out?"

Izzy shook his head. "Not yet. I can look at what they're looking at, sift through their files all I want… But I can't alter anything."

Joe smiled and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "This is a good start."

"Wait!" Yolei said. "There they are!"

She was pointing to one of the video screens. Izzy quickly moved to select it, and the video screen enlarged, revealing the 40 students passed out on the floor of what appeared to be a classroom. Two older strangers were lounging on desks, looking quite bored. TK, being the only blonde amongst the class, was the easiest to pick out, but they found Kari and Davis passed out not too far away. For a moment, they all just stared.

"Do we really want to watch this?" Mimi whispered.

Matt forced himself to his feet. "I need to know TK's okay."

Tai nodded, agreeing with his words.

Izzy looked between the two men before nodding as well. Without saying a word, he turned on his computer monitor and hooked it up, giving him a second screen to work off of as he started to work on hacking into the network. Tai looked around at the others who were starting to look a little ill at the thought of what they might have to witness if Izzy didn't pull off a miracle pretty soon.

"You don't have to stay," he said, looking at each of them. "We'll understand…"

Yolei and Ken immediately got back to work with helping to hack into the system. Cody took a seat on the floor, his eyes glued on the screen, and Joe joined him. Mimi and Sora settled onto the sofa, their expression slightly green but set. Nobody was going to leave. One way or another, they were going to get through this together.

And that's when Davis started to wake up…

x X x

Everything was black, confusingly black. Davis did not understand where he was as he opened his eyes slowly, a headache forming at his temples until he managed to focus in on his surroundings. This was definitely not Kyoto; where were they?

Looking around the room that they had been dumped in (it was the only word he could think to describe it), he realized that they were in a classroom. An old one if the cracks along the walls and discoloration along the ceiling told him anything. This only caused to confuse him more, though, instead of bring any answers. Everybody in the room was slowly starting to wake, and Davis's eyes zeroed in on two people at the back of the classroom who were sitting on the desks. He did not recognize them from class, and they were much too old to be 9th graders and yet much too young to be in charge.

"What…?"

Davis broke out of his thoughts as he heard Kari's voice. He turned to look at her and slid across the ground to her. He immediately started to check her over for injuries. He didn't know why he expected there to be injuries or feared there might be, but he had to check just in case.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked.

Kari nodded, holding her head for a moment as she tried to get her bearings straight. "I'm okay," she whispered before looking around. "TK…?"

Davis spun around before finally spotting the blonde. He was slowly pushing himself up onto his elbows, and Davis paled as he saw a line of blood running down his face. Kari and Davis crawled to his side.

"TK, you alright?" he asked, concerned.

Now that he was closer, he could see that the wound was actually pretty superficial, and it looked like the blood had actually dried quite a while ago. Even so, TK winced as he tenderly touched the bump. Kari grabbed his chin and moved to inspect it, and Davis tried not to glare as TK's hand dropped to let her do whatever she wanted. He was concerned, too.

"I'm fine," TK said. "I think. I woke up on the bus while everybody was asleep… Someone hit me to knock me back out…" He looked around. "Where are we?"

Kari let go of his face before shaking her head. "I don't know. Are you sure you're okay?"

TK smiled softly. "I'm fine. Just a headache."

"Well, I'm not sure where we are, but this looks like a classroom," Davis offered. "Probably inside an old building. Maybe—"

"What's that?" Kari cut him off.

She was pointing at something below Davis's chin before turning to point at an electronic metal collar around TK's neck. Davis's fingers flew up to his own, and he realized that it was the same type of collar that was around TK and even Kari's necks that he hadn't noticed before. He reached around to the back of the collar, trying to find a way to take it off, and TK reached out to grab his wrist.

"Wait," he said, looking around the room suspiciously. "We all have one. There has to be a reason."

Davis lowered his hands.

"Like what?" Nobu asked, joining the threesome.

TK shook his head, not having an answer.

"Oh, Kari," Minami said as she came over to the girl's side. "I'm scared."

Kari pulled the other girl into a hug before she nodded against her shoulder. "Me too," she admitted quietly.

"TK?" Tenchi called out.

The basketball player looked over at his teammates who were watching him worriedly, and he offered a small smile. "I'm good. You?"

Mickey nodded. "We're good."

TK looked back at Davis for a moment before his eyes focused in on the classroom door. "You think it's locked?" he asked, quietly.

"Probably," he said.

But as the two boys shared a look, they both moved to stand at the same time. They weren't going to just sit here and wait to see what happened next. They were stopped from finding out when the classroom door suddenly opened with a loud bang as it crashed open against the wall. Everybody jumped to their feet in alarm. A lieutenant led the way into the room, flipping on the lights as he went, and he was followed by at least a dozen soldiers, each one armed with a loaded rifle. Taking up the rear was someone that none of the students expected. It was their principal, Mr Higa. The three digidestined shared a concerned look. They had a really bad feeling about this.

"Mr Higa?" Nobu exclaimed. "What's going on?"

"Alright, settle down," the principal said when everybody started to echo his question. "Take a seat."

But nobody listened. Mr Higa exchanged a look with the lieutenant, and the soldier stepped forward.

"_SIT DOWN! NOW!_" he ordered.

Startled, the students scrambled to the floor. A few of the overturned chairs were pulled upright for a few of the people to take. Davis, TK, and Kari huddled together near the wall with Nobu and Minami sitting nearby. Kari had grabbed both Davis and TK's hands out of fear, and neither boy commented on it. Honestly, they were happy for the small bit of comfort, too.

"Well, hello again, 9th graders," Mr Higa said, almost brightly. "I'm your principal, Mr Higa, and I'll be taking over your class now. And I know we'll get along brilliantly. We have two transfer students with us! Say hello to Shingo Kobayashi," he gestured to the male sitting on the desk in the back, "and Nana Miyake," he gestured to the female in the back, "and be sure to give them a warm welcome!"

Mr Higa went to the chalkboard as he began to write something across the board. Davis, though, was studying the "transfer" students. They both looked closer to Joe's age than their own, and if Davis had to guess, he would assume that they were probably even older. Shingo was wild looking with shocking orange hair that stuck up in all directions, but he looked quite dangerous with an unsettling glint in his eyes. Nana wasn't any better. She had half of her head shaved with the other half of her hair laid out long in black and red ribbons. That same dangerous glint shown in her eyes.

"Where the hell are we?" Naoki Watanabe asked. He was the resident slacker of the class. The fact that he had even remembered to wake up early enough to go on this trip was almost shocking, though he was probably regretting that right about now.

"What's going on here?" Kimi Fujiwara continued. She was the class president making her quite used to speaking for the class.

"Who are these people?" Hina Kato, the class treasurer, added.

But Mr Higa ignored all of them. He stepped aside to show the words written across the board. "_THE BR ACT_" was written in a large scrawl, and he pointed at the words with the chalk still in his hand.

"Does anyone know what this law is?" he said, addressing the class.

No one spoke up. Davis looked over at TK and Kari to see if they had any idea, but they looked just as confused as he felt. And worried. He couldn't miss the fearful glances that they were shooting each other and then toward him. They were doing that thing again, where they could tell – somehow – that something bad was about to happen. And he had a very big feeling that they were probably right once more.

"That's not good," Mr Higa continued. "This is what this country has become. Do you want to know why?"

Mae and Marie Yamada, twin sisters, weren't exactly listening, not that they would have said anything either way if they had been. Instead, they were frantically whispering to each other, the older (Mae) trying to comfort the slightly hysterical younger (Marie). But Mr Higa didn't care what they were whispering about. His eyes zeroed in on them, and he chunked his chalk at them. The two girls squealed and scattered as the chalk hit the wall behind them.

"Shut up and listen!" he barked. "I will _not_ warn you again. No whispering!"

Davis stared at the principal with wide eyes. He had a feeling that Mr Higa was serious about the no whispering policy, and he felt Kari's grip on his hand tighten.

"Because of your generation, this country is falling apart!" Mr Higa said. "So the government got together and passed this law. Battle Royale!" Somebody near the back of the class gasped as if that meant something to them, but Davis was still just as confused as ever. "So, today's lesson is… you will kill each other off until there's only one of you left. Nothing is against the rules."

Davis laughed. He couldn't help it. There was _no way_ that this was real. But as Mr Higa rounded on him, the laughter died away, and he realized that their principal didn't really look like he was joking. Which meant only one thing…

"Think this is a joke, Motomiya?" he asked, lowly.

"Uh…"

"Mr Higa," Takami Yamazaki interrupted, saving Davis from trying to come up with an answer. She was the typical 'bad girl' of the class and part of Akio Sato's gang. She, like the rest of the gang, wore all black, and she was sporting a silver studded nose ring at the moment. "I don't understand what you're saying. You can't possibly _actually_ mean—"

"Actually, your teacher, Mr Fujiyama, deeply opposed your class being selected for this assignment," Mr Higa said, cutting Takami off as if she had never been talking in the first place.

He gestured for something outside the classroom door, and a few soldiers wheeled in a gurney with something on top of it that was covered with a sheet. Without waiting for the students to prepare themselves, Mr Higa yanked back the sheet, revealing the dead body of Mr Fujiyama. He had been shot in the back of his head, execution style. Several of the girls, Kari included, screamed. Davis put his arms around her fearfully.

"HEY! SHUT IT!" Mr Higa yelled.

The screaming immediately stopped, though whimpering and crying could be heard throughout the room. Kari had dropped her head into her hands as her shoulders shook with emotion. TK's jaw was dropped and his face so pale that Davis worried he might pass out. Not that he could blame him. Davis was feeling pretty dizzy at the moment, too.

"This man didn't know what it meant to be a citizen of Japan, to have the proper trust and love in your country, to the point that you would do _anything_ for it!" he continued. "You have to work hard not to become like him!" Mr Higa waved at a few nearby soldiers, and they wheeled the stretcher away. "Now, we're going to watch an educational video on Battle Royale. Pay attention, no talking, and don't fall asleep!"

As he spoke, the same soldiers returned, but this time they were wheeling in a television. They plugged it in before the lieutenant stepped forward, turned on the TV, and hit play on the DVD player. A cheesy splash screen appeared on the video with the title: "_How to Fight (and hopefully survive!) a Battle Royale by the BR Action Committee._"

The title screen faded, and a woman appeared on the video. It was the same woman that had been on the bus with them, their tour guide. She was dressed as if she were going hiking, and her shirt had the BR logo on the front. The smile on her face was way too happy considering the situation that they were in. She saluted the class excitedly before beginning to speak.

"Hello, everyone in Odaiba Middle School's 9th grade class!" she said in a far too perky manner. "You're the lucky class chosen for the very first Battle Royale!"

She spoke as if she expected them all to cheer at this announcement, but only Mr Higa responded as he began to applaud. "Thank you very much!" he said to the television.

The tour guide continued, "I'm going to explain the rules of the game to you, so you better listen up if you hope to survive the week." She beamed happily before her face disappeared and was instead replaced with a map of a tropical island that was surrounded on all sides by water. "You are on a deserted island that looks like this! It's about ten kilometers around, but we evacuated everyone, so it's empty."

The video stopped as Mr Higa paused it. "I said _no talking!_"

Davis turned to look at Kina Hara who had been whispering to Naeko Maeda. The two girls were seated on the desks right behind the three digidestined, and he had only half registered the fact that they were speaking quietly before Mr Higa pointed it out. So focused on looking at the girls, Davis didn't catch Mr Higa nodding to the lieutenant or the lieutenant raising his rifle. TK gasped next to him and suddenly yanked him and Kari down to the ground just as—

_BANG!_

The bullet hit Kina right in the head, and her blood splattered across the people behind her before her body fell forward right onto Davis and Kari. Kari screamed as she pulled away from Davis and scrambled away from Kina's dead body, practically crawling into TK's lap in the process. Davis wasn't much better as he threw himself away from her, unable to look away from the lifeless stare of Kina's glassy eyes.

GIRL NUMBER 5: KINA HARA, DEAD.

41 PLAYERS TO GO.

* * *

Next Chapter: Let the Games Begin


	3. Let the Games Begin

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. I wish I could say I did, though.

**Author's Note**: Battle Royale is a novel written by the great Koushan Takami, published in 1999. It became a film in 2000. If you have not seen or read it, you really should. It's a cult classic but very bloody.

To answer a question thrown out to me in one of the reviews, yes, I have read and watched The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is like the PG version of Battle Royale. For me, I prefer Battle Royale, and generally, I _hate_ things that are too graphic. The reason is that the characters in HG are prepared and trained for this battle; they know it's coming. The characters in BR are just children who are dumped into this situation unexpectedly. Also, HG only focuses on Katniss's POV, but BR really makes you see the horror of this game by making you witness and experience almost every single death. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

Also, I changed the Rating from M to T, because I think it's silly that your story gets punished for being M-Rated. But be aware, the violence in the story _is_ pretty bad.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Three: Let the Games Begin**

"They're coming across really clear," Cody said, his eyes glued to the screen as Davis, TK, and Kari sat together talking. "Almost like…"

"…they're wearing microphones," Joe finished, having been thinking the same thing.

"Of course!" Izzy said. "The collars around their necks! There must be a built-in microphone… I bet that's also how they're keeping tabs on their heart rate."

"That's great and all, Izzy, but how does that help us?" Sora asked.

"It doesn't," Izzy admitted. "Not yet, but every new piece of information that we gather is another step closer to getting them out of there."

"Shh!" Matt snapped suddenly. "Something's happening."

Just as he had said, the door to the classroom was finally opening. A bunch of soldiers came in along with a face that they all recognized: the middle school principal. Too shocked to comment on this fact, they all sat quietly as they watched what was happening. Only Izzy was busy, typing away on his computer as he tried to hack into the database. From the way he was shaking his head, he didn't seem to be making much headway.

"Transfer students?" Tai asked, breaking the silence over the digidestined. "What does he mean by that? Who are they?"

"I'm looking now," Yolei said as she started to type away on her computer. A moment later, the color was leaving her face. "Oh, no…"

"Oh, no?" Mimi repeated. "Yolei, what does that mean? You can't leave the rest of us in suspense!"

"Um…" She swallowed thickly. "Shingo Kobayashi isn't a student. He's a convict with a life sentence for murdering six people and injuring nineteen others during seven different shootouts throughout Japan three years ago. And Nana Miyake isn't much better… She was convicted of murdering her parents at thirteen and was given a sixty year prison sentence until she murdered her cellmate four years ago, and she has been in isolation ever since." She turned to look at the other white-faced people in the room. "They added experienced killers to the game."

"But why?" Sora choked out through her shock and fear. "What do criminals have to do with anything?"

"I'm not sure…" Yolei said.

"I think I do," her boyfriend piped up. Ken had a hard expression on his face as he glared at the computer screen in front of him. "Apparently there's a clause in the BR Law that says to make sure that there is an equal number of boys and girls participating in the game, criminals will be used to fill in the last few spaces."

"But there are an equal number of boys and girls in their class," Joe pointed out.

Ken nodded. "I know, and in that case, one male and one female prisoner will be added. And to make sure the prisoners have enough incentive to play… If they win, they get to go free."

"What now?" Cody asked, sounding a little defeated.

"Nothing's changed!" Tai snapped, though the green tint in his face gave away his fear. "We still focus on trying to get them out of there."

"It's not like there's anything we can do about it anyway," Matt said darkly.

"Oh my god!" Mimi suddenly yelled as she jumped to her feet.

Everybody turned to look at the screen again. Mr Fujiyama's dead body was lying on a stretcher that had been pulled into the room. They stared as Mr Higa moved on as if this was perfectly normal. A stunned silence filled the group. Even Izzy's typing had stalled as he took in the horrific scene and continued that way long after Mr Fujiyama's body had been wheeled out. Matt sank to the floor and dropped his head into his hands. Sora moved over to him. Her eyes were watering with unshed tears, but she knew that it was nothing compared to what he was feeling.

"Matt…"

"This is really happening," he whispered. "I wish someone would just wake me up… but this is really happening."

Sora knew that anything she said would either be a false promise or sound hollow to her ears, so she just rested her head against his shoulder, trying to give him whatever comfort that she could. The words of the educational video started up, along with Izzy's typing, and those two things were the only sound for a few minutes. And then—

_BANG!_

They all jumped, and Kari's screams sounded throughout the apartment. Matt jumped to his feet and ran to the screen, quickly finding his brother there, holding onto Kari who was staring at the dead body of a female classmate, with Davis on the other side of her, frozen in a horrified trance. Tai let out a relieved sob.

"Thank God… I know I sound awful, but I don't care," he admitted shakily. "Thank God it wasn't one of them…"

And then panic erupted in the classroom…

x X x

All at once, everybody realized how real it was. The students jumped to their feet and started to try to bum rush the classroom door. The soldiers lined up in front of it, creating a human barricade. Davis had to scramble to his feet to stop from being trampled, and he still took an elbow to the stomach as he fought to get out of the mob. He couldn't even see TK and Kari in the crowd anymore, and from the way everybody was panicking, he hoped they had just tried to step aside from everyone else.

Even though escaping seemed like a pretty good idea right about now…

The soldiers aimed their automatic weapons to the ceiling and started firing off. _Pop, pop, pop!_ in rapid succession, and Davis yelped as he threw himself to the ground. He could hear the bullets ricocheting off of the metal beam supports and whizzing by dangerously close. The screams of the students were so loud that it was almost drowning out the sound of the gunfire. The students started to scramble away from the soldiers. A few of the more impatient uniformed men turned their guns to the floor as they began to fire dangerously close to the students' feet, making them run all the way back to opposite wall of the room.

Amongst the screams, Davis heard a cry of pain that made his heart leap into his throat. _Kari!_ Ignoring his own safety, he jumped up and ran to the other side of the room. Huddled under one of the desks were TK and Kari. The taller blonde was crouched in front of Kari, practically lying on top of her as he used his body as a human shield for her against the rampaging students and unpredictable gunfire. For a moment, Davis thought everything was okay until he saw TK's hand on her thigh. Kari's hand was underneath his, but even through the two sets of fingers, Davis could see the blood oozing out and staining her white capris red.

Davis dropped by their side. "Oh my god! Were you shot!?"

Kari peeked out from over TK's shoulder. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide with fear. "It was just a graze," she promised shakily.

"Davis," TK said, his voice shaking almost worse than Kari's, "grab me Kari's bag. Now!"

He wanted to ask what for, but he decided that could wait for later. He scanned the sea of scattered bags quickly before spotting the pink backpack with the purple _Hello Kitty!_ keychain dangling from the zipper. Davis grabbed it before sliding it over to TK, and the blonde finally pulled his hand away from Kari's leg to rip it open. He pulled out a pink scarf almost immediately. Kari finally pulled her hand away from the wound. Beneath the blood and the torn fabric of Kari's capris, Davis couldn't really see much of anything, but just the glimpse of the injury before TK was wrapping the scarf around her leg as a makeshift bandage filled him with anger.

Davis turned to glare at Mr Higa before he leapt to his feet and charged at the man. It was his fault. It was _all_ his fault. Mr Fujiyama was dead, Kari had been shot… He pulled back his fist to punch the man in the mouth, but Mr Higa saw it coming. He caught Davis's fist and pushed him roughly away, right into the lieutenant. The lieutenant punched Davis across the face, sending the digidestined stumbling into the row of desks against the wall.

"Davis!" TK yelled, alarmed.

He turned around, angry and his jaw throbbing, to find most of the soldiers pointing their rifles at him. He suddenly felt frozen in place until a soft hand grabbed his own. He averted his gaze to find Kari staring up at him with watery eyes. She gave a small shake of her head. Davis only hesitated a moment before he listened and slowly sank to the floor to sit down. Mr Higa nodded, satisfied, and waved the soldiers off.

"Okay," Mr Higa said, just as normally as if nothing had occurred, "back to the video!"

Davis turned to look at TK and Kari who had both let out a sigh of terrified relief. TK was still trying to tie the scarf around Kari's leg, but his hands were shaking so bad he couldn't even get it into a knot. Davis frowned in concern as he wordlessly reached out to grab his friend's hands and pried them away from the scarf before he finished the job. Mr Higa hit play on the video, and it picked up where it left off.

"The island's divided into many zones," the tour guide said brightly. "Every six hours, your teacher will broadcast updates—"

"Four times a day!" Mr Higa added for those who were mathematically challenged.

"—about which zones are becoming danger zones. If you are in these zones, you should leave quickly because the danger is… Well… You know those necklaces you are all wearing?"

She was back on the screen, and she grabbed the choker she had on to indicate what she was talking about. Everybody mimicked her movement, their thoughts brought back to the new piece of jewelry that they were all sporting.

"They are one hundred percent waterproof and shockproof… and permanent! So, if you linger in a danger zone, cause trouble, or try to rip it off… we can identity you and signal to those little electronic collars of yours to trigger an alarm, and… _BOOM! _It explodes! And you're out of the game for good."

"You assholes!" Nobu shouted.

"Shut up!" Ben Yamane yelled. He was the smartest kid in class with a nerdy disposition that often reminded Davis a bit of a younger Joe, even down to his coke bottle glasses. "I can't hear the video!"

Mr Higa paused the movie, his face twisted in annoyance at another interruption, but Nobu didn't even seem to notice. He was so worked up that he was turning red in the face. Davis couldn't blame him. He was feeling the exact same way.

"We don't have to listen to this crap!" Nobu said to Ben before turning to Mr Higa. "You can't ask your students to kill each other!"

"You're sending us to a death penalty," Minami spoke up quietly.

"Those who fail to participate will be punished," Mr Higa explained without an ounce of remorse. He gestured vaguely toward Kina Hara's body and added, "As you've already seen."

"We don't have to do this!" Nobu continued, turning to face the students, trying to appeal to them.

"Shut up, loser!" Danny Sasaki, another member of Akio Sato's gang and the school bully, said with a sneer. The obvious fear in his face killed most of the bravado.

"He couldn't kill us all! We don't have to go through with this," he implored. "We can fight this!"

Davis was just about to stand up to join him when TK suddenly grabbed his arm.

"You need to get him to stop, Davis," TK whispered. "He'll listen to you."

The soccer player was ready to argue with him that Nobu had the right idea when he realized that the blonde wasn't watching Nobu. His eyes were on their principal. Davis turned to look at Mr Higa, and he caught sight of the dangerous look in his eyes. TK was right. Nobu's impassioned words were doing nothing to convince their principal that they didn't deserve this; it seemed to only be pissing him off.

"Nobu, stop," Davis said. "C'mon, just sit down."

Nobu rounded on him. "Are you saying you can do this?" he asked. "You could kill TK and Kari to survive!?"

"Listen carefully to your classmates, Nobu," Mr Higa said in a threatening voice. "You're risking your life by speaking out of turn, and _anybody_ else who joins you."

"You were a damn good principal!" Nobu said, now turning toward the older man. "And our school is one of the top ones in Odaiba! Even a screw up like me is getting really good grades. So, why us? How could you do this to us? How could you send us to this death penalty, as Minami put it?"

"Alright, that's enough," Mr Higa said, getting fed up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small remote control. "I really hate to do this… but what must be done must be done."

He pushed a button on the remote. Davis instantly tensed, worried about what was going to happen, when an LED light on Nobu's collar started to flash and beep rapidly. Nobu's hands flew up to his collar as his eyes widened in panic. Everybody started to back away from him as they realized that nothing good was about to happen. Girls screamed as Nobu staggered toward them, looking for help, and Davis jumped to his feet.

"Nobu!" he shouted.

Nobu turned to look toward him, and their eyes locked just as—

The collar exploded, blowing part of Nobu's neck out, killing him instantly. His lifeless body fell to the floor next to Kina's.

"NO!" Davis screamed.

He threw himself down next to Nobu's body and gripped the back of his shirt. Hot tears were running down his face as his chest tightened. This couldn't be happening. This had to be some mistake. He shook him lightly and called out his name, "Nobu!" but the teenager didn't make a sound. A pool of blood was forming around his head, mixing with Kina's, and staining Davis's jeans at the knees. Davis dropped his head onto Nobu's back as he cried.

"_Hey, Davis," Nobu said as they waited for the bus to arrive that morning to take them to Kyoto. "Do you have a crush on anyone right now?" Davis gave him a 'duh' look, and Nobu laughed. "Oh, right, stupid question. Kari, right? But TK likes her, too, doesn't he?" _

_Davis shrugged. "Maybe. We don't really talk about it." _

"_How do you do it?" Nobu asked. "How do you like the same girl and not get so angry with him?" _

"_I was when I first met him," he admitted, "but then I realized that he was much too good of a friend to let something like a girl come between us. And I know he feels the same way about me." He then grinned at his soccer buddy. "What about you? Do you like anybody?" _

_Nobu went slightly red. "Uh, maybe…" _

_Davis narrowed his eyes. "Not Kari, right?" _

_He laughed. "No!" He looked around at the crowd of 9th graders before lowering his voice and continuing, "You think Ami would ever talk to me?" _

_Davis turned to look at Ami Hidaka, easily the prettiest girl in the class. She was surrounded by three boys at the moment, all of whom were obviously flirting with her. Honestly, he thought Nobu's chances were a longshot, but Davis had never been one to bet against longshots. He grinned at his friend._

"_Maybe she will on this trip."_

BOY NUMBER 12: NOBU NARITA, DEAD.

40 PLAYERS TO GO.

"What a shame," Mr Higa said as he stared down at the dead body of Nobu. "He was right. As much of a screw up as he was, he wasn't all bad."

Davis looked up, tears smeared down his cheeks, and his face twisted in fury. He wasn't going to let him get away with this. With a furious yell, he moved to charge at the monster that did this to his friend, but before he had even gotten to his feet, he was being tackled back to the ground. He immediately moved to fight whoever was on top of him until he heard TK's voice speaking frantically to him.

"Davis, don't! Don't give him a reason!" he said, pressing Davis's shoulders into the ground so that he couldn't get up.

He fought for a few more seconds before finally giving up as he gave a helpless sob. TK got off of him and wrapped his arms around his middle to drag him back to the line of terrified students. A moment later, Davis was being pushed into Kari's arms, and he buried his face into Kari's shoulder as he cried. He didn't care who saw. TK's eyes never left Mr Higa the entire time, and beneath the unshed tears was a deep-seated hatred and anger for the man standing there.

Mr Higa raised an eyebrow at the blonde. "What's that look for, Takeru?"

TK didn't respond, but he forced himself to look away even as he shook with how much rage he was feeling at the moment. It was so suffocating that he was almost forgetting to be afraid. Almost. But it was that residual fear that reminded him to take his own advice. _Don't give him a reason_. Apparently satisfied that this new problem had been dealt with, Mr Higa turned back to the video and pressed play once more.

"Oh!" the tour guide said brightly. "I almost forgot something! There's a time limit on this game. Three days! If we don't have a winner after three days, all of the necklaces will automatically explode, and no one will win! So, as long as we're here, let's fight hard to make sure that doesn't happen."

Mr Higa paused the video, and everybody tensed, expecting something else to take place. But all the principal did was look back at the class and say, "Any questions so far?"

At first, nobody moved. And then Wataru Tanaka, a slightly chubby boy that did the layouts for the yearbook, raised a shaky hand.

"Yes, Wataru?"

"Sir, if I survive, can I go home?" he asked.

The students watched their principal eagerly as they waited for the answer.

"If everybody else is dead, yes," Mr Higa said. "Anymore?"

Kari raised her hand, and TK and Davis looked at her.

"Kari?" Mr Higa said, nodding for her to ask her question.

"What about our parents?" she asked quietly.

"They have been informed of where you are and what you're doing, so don't hesitate in going for it!" He said this as if it was supposed to be some type of encouragement. Instead, a lot of the girls started to just cry louder.

Koreya Kikuchi, a self-described loner but all around nice guy, stood as he raised his hand.

"Yes, Koreya?" Mr Higa said.

"You never did answer Nobu's question," Koreya said, his voice trembling as he said Nobu's name. "Why were we chosen?"

"Impartial lottery," Mr Higa answered easily. "All classes from 7th to 12th grade from every school in Japan were put into the draw, and you were the lucky ones."

Davis wiped at his face, brushing the tears away, as he exchanged a look with TK. Lucky. Right.

"One more?" Koreya asked, not sitting down just yet.

Mr Higa nodded. "Go ahead."

"Why are you doing this?" he whispered.

"It's your own faults," Mr Higa said, throwing a glare at each one of them. "Your generation mocks grownups with your cruel words and made up stories, and that's fine. Go ahead and mock us, but don't forget: life is a game, so fight for survival and hope that you're worth it, because we're the ones holding the cards to your future."

Koreya sat back down, and after a moment of silence where nobody else raised their hands, Mr Higa gestured to the soldiers just outside the door. A second later, they were wheeling in two trolleys full of olive green military backpacks. They stopped them by the front wall as the soldiers at the front of the classroom dispersed so that they weren't blocking them from view. Mr Higa waited until the movement had ceased before he put the movie back into motion once more.

"You will leave the room one by one," the tour guide continued, just as bright as ever, "but first you get a kit!" The camera pulled back to reveal a table in front of her that had all of the supplies that they would supposedly find inside of the backpacks. "Inside is food, water, a map, a compass, a flashlight, and a weapon, so be sure to check it all out once you get outside! Oh, and the girls might need personal items, so everybody is allowed to bring their school backpacks with them.

"Now, let's talk about the weapons," she said, practically giddy. "Each weapon is different, and it's not just all guns and knives! It's completely random, so maybe you'll get lucky… and maybe not so much. This helps to eliminate the natural advantage that some of you have over your peers." She reached down and picked up a broad axe before gasping with glee. "Oooh! This is extremely lucky!"

A soldier closest to the trolley reached behind him to pick up the first backpack before standing there at the ready.

"Each of you has been assigned a number, based on the English alphabetical order of your family names, and it is in this order that you all will leave the room," the tour guide said. "When I call your name, I want to hear a nice big HERE! Boy number 1, Masaki Abe!"

"H-Here!"

Masaki was an awkward, gangly boy who stumbled over his own feet as he quickly gathered his belongings. The soldier threw the pack at him as he approached the front of the room, and the boy nearly fell over from the unexpected weight addition.

"Go!" the lieutenant barked.

"O-okay!" Masaki stuttered before he went running from the classroom.

DAY 1, 00:30 AM. THE GAME BEGINS.

"Girl number 1, Raina Arakaki!"

Extremely athletic and beautiful, Raina was the track star of the school. She got to her feet after forcing herself to take a deep breath and grabbed her bag before jogging to the front. Then, doing what she did best, she ran from the room at lightning speed.

"Boy number 2, Tenchi Arai!"

Co-captain of the basketball team, only second to TK, Tenchi stood on slightly wobbly legs. He threw his backpack over his shoulder and caught his bag before looking back at the rest of the class. He held the kit up over his head until the guard finally threw him out of the room.

"Girl number 2, Kimi Fujiwara!"

The class president suddenly didn't seem too certain of herself anymore as she wobbled up to the front of the room. Mascara was running down her face from shed tears.

"C'mon, hurry up!" the lieutenant barked, causing the frightened girl to run forward to grab her kit bag before she left the classroom behind.

"Boy number 3, Jimon Chiba!"

A slightly effeminate boy quickly located his bag before moving to grab his kit, but it was thrown out of his reach. He scrambled for it and snatched it up as if his life depended on it (as it very well could, Davis realized darkly), before he ran from the room.

"Girl number 3, Minami Fukazawa!"

Minami turned to Kari with wide frightened eyes. "I guess I'm going, Kari."

The two girls hugged tightly, and Kari tearfully whispered, "Whatever happens, you'll always be my friend."

"I know!" she sobbed.

She grabbed up her bag, grabbed her kit, and went running out of the room.

"Boy number 4, Reiji Endo!"

Dressed in all black like the rest of Akio's gang, Ray sent everybody around him a suspicious look as he stood and grabbed up his book bag. He caught the military backpack thrown to him and walked out of the classroom, almost calmly.

Davis took the time that Ray's slow strides gave them to grab TK and Kari's attention. Both of the digidestined were looking sickly pale as they sat there, and he had a very strong suspicion that he probably didn't look any better.

"We'll meet up together outside," he said. "Whoever is out first, find a spot near the entrance that's hidden and then just wait for the others, okay?"

Kari nodded at the plan, and TK swallowed nervously. "It'll be Kari."

"What?" Davis asked, confused.

"English alphabetical order," TK reminded him. "That puts Kari first, I'm pretty sure."

Looking nervous but determined, Kari nodded. "Okay. I'll wait for both of you."

"We'll be right behind you," Davis promised. He trusted TK's assessment on the situation. He knew that the blonde knew a lot more English than he did.

"Girl number 4, Sara Goto!"

The youngest girl in the class turned to her boyfriend, Hugo Ochi, whose hand she had been holding. They shared a tender kiss before she pulled away to shake her head sadly. She walked to the front of the room, not even bothering to grab her backpack. The soldier threw her a military bag, but she threw it straight at Mr Higa.

"You can keep it," she spat out tearfully.

Davis's eyes widened as Sara went running from the room completely unarmed. Mr Higa just shrugged and threw the pack back onto the trolley.

"Boy number 5, Yasuharu Hayashi!"

Akio's second-in-command stood, wearing the traditional all black. Haru grabbed his school bag and bumped knuckles with Akio before he grabbed his kit bag and headed out.

"Girl number 5, Kina Hara!"

A few of the girls sobbed as Mr Higa smirked slightly and fast forwarded the video through the silence that was supposed to give Kina the time to leave. But she was dead on the floor. She would not be participating in the game. Perhaps she was the lucky one.

"Boy number 6, Fumiki Ito!"

Mickey took a deep breath before moving to stand. The light-brown haired basketball player walked forward to collect his kit bag before turning back to his classmates. He saluted them all solemnly before he left.

"Girl number 6, Ami Hidaka!"

The prettiest girl in the class slid over to pick up her belongings before she stood meekly to collect the military backpack thrown at her. She tossed a look at her classmates, an expression on her face that Davis couldn't quite read, before she ran out of the classroom.

"Boy number 7, Koreya Kikuchi!"

Without a word or a glance at anybody, Koreya picked himself off of the floor and grabbed his bag. He caught the military bag thrown at him before he exited the room.

"Girl number 7, Kari Kamiya!"

Kari tensed up, and Davis and TK turned to look at her. She shakily grabbed her pink backpack and gave both boys a tight hug.

"I'll be right outside," she whispered.

They both nodded.

"Kari Kamiya!" the lieutenant barked impatiently.

She stood and limped to the front, her injured leg causing her some trouble. The kit thrown at her was nearly heavy enough to send her back to the floor, but she managed to stay standing. She sent a frightened look back at Davis and TK before she walked out the door.

"Boy number 8, Shingo Kobayashi!"

Both Davis and TK spun to watch the orange-haired man stand. He had an easy smirk on his face as he strutted to the front of the class. He caught the kit that was handed to him before tossing a wink at the students left in the room.

"Crap," Davis cursed. "He's right behind Kari!"

TK shook his head. "She's smart. She'll hide first thing. She'll be okay."

"Girl number 8, Hina Kato!"

The short-haired girl was all tears as she gathered up her stuff and caught the military backpack thrown at her. She slipped and fell to the floor on the way out before picking herself back up and fleeing from the room, sobbing.

"Boy number 9, Gai Kudo!"

Gai sucked in a breath and snatched up his bag before sprinting toward the door. He caught his kit as it was thrown at him without stopping and was gone in a flash.

"Girl number 9, Naeko Maeda!"

Best friend of the now deceased Kina Hara, Naeko snatched up her purse and backpack before jogging out of the room. She had a determined look on her face, and her tears had long since dried up.

"Boy number 10, Davis Motomiya!"

"Finally," he sighed before turning to look at TK. The blonde was looking both pale and green, and he clapped a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. "We'll see you outside."

He didn't stand until he saw TK nod in understanding. Getting that verbal agreement, he grabbed up his blue backpack and caught his kit bag out of the air. He was about to make his way out of the room when Shingo Kobayashi stormed back in. He threw his kit bag in his hands at the soldier and looked at the lieutenant.

"What the—!"

"That's not my kit," he said before picking up another without even asking. "This one is."

Shingo looked around as if to ask if anybody had a problem with that before he made his way back out of the room. Davis was left standing there, totally confused, as he turned to look over at TK. The blonde looked just as baffled and concerned. Mr Higa just smirked.

"As you probably guessed, our transfers are a little dangerous," he said, grinning over at Nana who was still in the room.

Davis was suddenly shoved roughly toward the door, breaking him out of the moment and bringing him straight back to the situation at hand.

"Go!"

Sending one last look at the Child of Hope, Davis ran from the classroom. The hallway was lined on either side by more soldiers, and Davis just kept his head down as he ran through the lot of them before he finally found his way out in the open. The school exited out into a clearing, but it was mostly surrounded by what looked like a forest. Or maybe it was a jungle. Davis had never been very good at telling those two apart.

"Davis!"

His head snapped in the direction of the whisper, and he saw a flash of pink peeking out from behind one of the trees. He ran over to Kari and pulled her into a tight hug. Silently, they ducked back behind the tree. All they could do now was wait.

* * *

Next chapter: Reality Check


	4. Reality Check

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. I just happen to love bringing stories of hope and stories of despair together to see what happens!

**Author's Note**: Thank you to everyone for such the awesome reviews! Even just the comment that this is nutty made me smile, so thank you all very much.

Yes, I am using the dub names, and that does mean that Kari's last name is different. I've never understood why they changed some last names either, but I like to keep it consistent. Plus, Kari has always been Kari Kamiya to me, not Hikari Yagami, even though that name is just as beautiful. However, I do sometimes say that their dub names are simply nicknames for their original names (such as TK for Takeru) but not always. Sometimes, they just have a name more commonly found in English such as Joe or Davis.

But it's this treatment of the names that explains why the other characters in my story have a variety of Japanese names, Japanese names with Americanized nicknames, and English names. I wanted the story to flow without one character sticking out too much because of their name. I also only chose names that I thought would be easy for dub-watchers like me to read. I think the hardest name without a nickname for me to say is probably Kuroi or Akio, but I think both look pretty, so I used them anyway! (It should be noted that I'm only talking about given names. Family names are all Japanese, and they all give me difficulty, haha!)

Anywho, that's a little glimpse into this author's mind. I hope you all...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Four: Reality Check**

"Girl number 11, Nana Miyake!"

The female convict finished tying her shoes before calmly climbing off the desk. She sauntered through the crowd of frightened prepubescent children and grabbed her kit from the soldier who knew better than to throw it at her. She turned to the students and blew a kiss at one of the random boys still waiting before she walked out. She wasn't worried. As far as Nana was concerned, she only had one person here to be worried about, and that was her fellow convict. Everything else was going to be a piece of cake.

She absently ran her fingers over her bottom lip, smoothing out her cherry red lipstick as she exited the school. A noise from the bushes in front of her told her that at least two of the kids were hiding out there, but she figured she could deal with them later. What was the fun in rushing everything, after all?

Nana smirked to herself as she imagined the students pressing their backs up against the tree as they held their breath, waiting to see if the scary transfer student had heard them or not. With a light shrug to herself, she chose a direction and wandered off. She didn't need to go after the scared babies yet when she knew without a doubt that the egotistical morons would come looking for her instead. They always did.

x X x

"Boy number 17, Chuugo Suzuki!"

The trembling boy and goalie of the soccer team stood. He grabbed the wrong bag at first, which was yanked back by its owner, before finally finding his. He barely caught the kit thrown to him before rushing out of the building.

"Girl number 17, Iria Sugiyama!"

The dancer stood up and made her way out of the room, looking every bit as frightened as Chuugo did before her. She carried her belongings and kit bag in shaking hands, but before exiting the room, she looked back at everybody with a tearful expression. The remaining girls sobbed at the reminder of what they were all about to have to face, and Iria left the room.

"Boy number 18, Takeru Takaishi!"

_Okay, here I go,_ the blonde thought shakily as he shut the D-Terminal in his hands. After finding his D-Terminal in his backpack's front pocket, he spent the last several minutes as he waited for his name to be called checking and rechecking his messages. Matt had never responded, and he knew that his brother definitely would have. The message he had started to compose on the bus was in the OUTBOX, so he knew it had gotten through. Some sort of signal jammer had to be stopping Matt's message from getting to him. He had even tried to send a message out to test his theory, but all he had gotten was an error message in return.

Well, at least that explained why they hadn't bothered to collect cell phones or other electronics. It didn't matter if they had them; there was no way to call out anyway.

The 14-year-old picked up his green backpack and made his way out of the room after catching his kit bag. He ran through the corridors, past the many soldiers, and exited out into the clearing outside the school. He stood there uncertainly for a moment. Davis and Kari said that they would wait for him, but he didn't see them around. Then again, they had been kept waiting at least 10 minutes because he was so far down the list. Maybe they had been forced to move on. Shingo did leave the school right before Davis and Nana had been right after. Maybe they'd been forced to leave him behind…

Hearing the sound of footsteps behind him, TK realized that girl number 18, whoever she might be, was exiting the school. He ducked quickly behind a tree to the left of the clearing, feeling suddenly fearful of everyone and everything, as he tried to figure out his next move. If he couldn't find Davis and Kari, what was he supposed to do? Was he really on his own? What if instead of being forced to move on they had just decided to leave him behind? Or worse, what if they were already _dead_?

Abruptly feeling foolish, TK rolled his eyes at himself as he pulled his digivice off of his belt. He could see two nearby red dots just on the other side of the clearing, making their way toward him. They were taking the long way around to try to stay out of sight, but they were definitely moving to meet up with him. They wouldn't leave him behind, and he felt stupid for thinking that they would in the first place.

"Takeru…"

TK turned toward the sound of his name. Despite what his D-3 had just told him, he half expected it to be Kari standing there, but the streams of moonlight shone through the treetops overhead to illuminate the face of Enya Shimizu. He didn't know her very well, but he was pretty sure she was on the girls' soccer team. Her expression was distressed, and it wasn't until she took another step closer that he could see why. A crossbow bolt was lodged through her throat. He could see the bloodstains on either side of her neck leaking down and staining her yellow shirt.

He stumbled backwards in shock. "E-Enya…?"

"W-what is this…?" she whispered, still coming toward him. "Help me…"

She reached out toward him weakly before falling forward. TK reached out to catch her out of instinct, but her sudden deadweight was more than he was ready for. He hit the ground with a grunt before looking at Enya, his mouth opening to ask if she was alright, when he saw her lifeless eyes staring straight ahead. She was dead. TK pushed her off of him frantically just as an arrow went whizzing by dangerously close to his ear.

TK managed to keep a yelp of fear in as his eyes scanned the darkness to finally spot Masaki Abe standing on top of the school building. He was fumbling to reload his crossbow, and TK just reacted. He reached behind him and pulled the bolt out of the ground before throwing it with all of his strength at Masaki. It didn't hit its mark, but the arrow flew by close enough to startle the awkward boy. Maskaki yelped and lost his footing before tumbling over the side of the building and falling into a line of bushes.

TK stared, stunned. "M-Masaki…" he called out softly as he shakily got to his feet.

_Please don't be dead…_

He stood there, rooted, his eyes staring at the bushes for some sign of life when his prayers were finally answered. Masaki groaned and rolled out of the bushes before shakily getting to his feet. He was a little dazed and had leaves and twigs sticking out of his hair in all directions, but he looked fine. And he didn't have his crossbow with him.

"TK!" Kari cried as she and Davis finally spotted him.

TK realized that he really shouldn't wait around for Masaki to find his crossbow. He spun toward the voices of his friends before running over to them and grabbing Kari's wrist.

"Run!" he ordered.

He started to drag Kari away just as Davis finally spotted Enya's body on the ground. He cursed under his breath and scanned the horizon for the culprit. Masaki was still stumbling around, looking for his crossbow, and Davis took off at a run after the two digidestined. Behind them, Masaki suddenly wasn't feeling as confident as he was a moment before.

"Oh man, what am I doing?" he muttered under his breath.

He was covered in nervous sweat as he looked through the bushes for his weapon. He jumped when he heard a twig snap behind him, and he spun around. Boy number 14, Morio Saito, stood there holding _his_ crossbow. His long hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and his treble clef t-shirt gave away his musical aspirations. His head was tilted as he considered Masaki in front of him.

"Is this yours?" Morio asked, holding out the crossbow.

Panicked, Masaki saw this gesture as violent, and he reacted in the only way he knew how. He charged at Morio, ready to fight to get his weapon back. Morio's eyes went wide as he stumbled backwards and fell over himself, accidentally pulling the trigger of the loaded crossbow as he went down. The arrow flew through the air and hit Masaki right in the chest. Masaki collapsed to the ground like a rag doll, dead. Morio went pale.

"Shit! This is really happening!"

Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed the quiver of arrows off of Masaki's back and then took off running.

GIRL NUMBER 16: ENYA SHIMIZU, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 1: MASAKI ABE, DEAD.

38 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

"Girl number 21, Anna Yoshida!"

The smartest girl in class shuffled her out of the room, collecting her kit bag along the way. She was the last student to enter the game zone. Mr Higa turned to look at the lieutenant, and they both smiled in anticipation. This was going to be good.

01:00 AM. ALL PLAYERS ENTER THE GAME.

x X x

"Wait! Wait…" Kari gasped as she pulled her hand away from TK to double over, trying to catch her breath.

She had sweat running down her face from the amount of running they had been doing, and she was pretty sure they had put quite a bit of distance between them and the school by this point. She winced as she put all of her weight on her uninjured leg. She could feel her left one pulsing in pain from overuse. The throbbing felt quite loud throughout her system.

Kari swallowed in some air before managing, "I can't… I need to stop… I'm sorry…"

She had always considered herself to be in pretty good shape, especially compared to some of the other girls in her class who preferred to focus on makeup instead of going out and doing something active. Between dance and being a digidestined, she had a fair number of ways that she remained on the move. But she definitely wasn't an athlete like the two boys that she was running with, and that fact was painfully obvious at the moment.

"Davis!" TK called out to the boy that was ahead of them to get him to stop before he fell back to Kari's side.

"Hold on!" Davis said before jogging a further bit ahead. "There's a cave up here."

TK nodded to him before looking back at Kari. "Can you make it?"

Forcing herself to be strong, she whispered, "I think so."

"C'mon," he said softly.

He grabbed her left arm and draped it over his shoulders and put an arm around her waist before he began to guide her down the hill toward the beach. At least, she assumed that they were heading toward a beach. She could hear the waves crashing against the shore nearby, but everything was so dark, she was having a hard time making out anything in the distance. She used TK as a crutch as they made their way toward Davis who was scouting the area, trying to make sure that they were alone.

"TK," she said, "do you remember the Dark Ocean?"

He shot her a confused look. "Of course."

"That's where I feel like I am right now," she admitted, trying to keep her tears at bay.

"We'd probably be safer there if we were," he whispered, his voice wavering slightly. He forced himself to clear his throat before he moved toward the cave that Davis had spotted. It was less of a cave and more of a tiny cubby hole that only marginally protected them from the elements, but at least it helped to mostly keep them out of sight. He helped lower her onto a rock to sit down. "Here you go…"

Davis kneeled next to her, his eyes on the spot where she was injured. "How's your leg?" he asked worriedly.

TK dumped his bags by them before he moved to walk away. Kari watched him, confused.

"TK…?"

The blonde glanced back at her before speaking, "I, uh… I need a second… I'll be right back…"

Kari and Davis watched his retreating back until he disappeared around the ridge. Davis licked his lips nervously.

"I'm sure he's okay," he said, answering Kari's unasked question. "Your leg?"

Kari looked down at it before wincing a bit. "It hurts," she admitted. "But I don't think it's too bad."

"May I…?"

Kari smiled slightly at his uncertainty and nodded. Davis reached forward and untied the scarf before carefully unwrapping it from her leg. Kari winced slightly as the dried blood pulled against her skin, and Davis muttered a quick apology. They both paused when they heard the nearly inaudible sound of vomiting. Davis caught Kari's eye, and he gave a small shake of his head. His message was clear; TK had walked off to have his breakdown in private, and it wasn't their place to bring it up. He pushed the rip in her pants open a bit more so that he could get a better look at the cut, and he grimaced at the torn flesh and blood.

"It looks like just a scratch," he said a little shakily. "I'll wash it out."

Davis shed his backpack and reached into his military kit to find the bottle of water that they had been provided with. He was in the middle of gently sprinkling water onto Kari's cut when TK returned. He was still looking a bit green, but he seemed a little bit steadier on his feet as he moved to sit with them.

He looked up into Kari's face and asked quietly, "How are you?"

She smiled softly. "I'm okay."

"It looks like it's just a scratch," Davis offered.

He picked up the scarf and moved to wrap her leg again, putting a clean patch of cloth over her wound this time. It wasn't like they had an unlimited supply of makeshift bandages. TK smiled slightly in relief before he pulled his kit over to him and moved to open it up.

"What weapon do you have?" TK asked, digging around in his bag to find his.

Davis finished tying off the knot before he handed Kari her pack and grabbed his own. Kari found hers first. She hesitated before she pulled out a bulletproof vest. TK and Davis stopped looking through their bags to stare at it.

"Put it on," they said at the same time.

Kari hesitated. "Maybe one of you should instead…"

TK gave her a look. "You're the one that's already been shot," he reminded her.

"We're not going to take no for an answer," Davis said, smiling lightly.

She ducked her head for a moment before nodding. "Okay…"

Kari moved to open the vest, pulling the straps from the Velcro, when Davis reached out to grab her wrist as a sudden thought hit him.

"You should wear it under your shirt," he said.

She blinked. "What?"

He pulled his hand away. "It's just… It'll be more effective if… you know… they don't realize you're wearing it."

Davis didn't specify who _they_ were, but Kari didn't need it. She ran the vest through her hands for a moment before giving a small nod. TK stood, taking his military pack with him, and gestured for Davis to follow. The gogglehead took a moment to realize what he was doing before he grabbed his kit and exited the cave, leaving Kari alone to give her the privacy she needed to put the vest on. The boys leaned back against the wall of the cave as they waited for the okay to head back inside. Davis glanced over at TK, who was only half looking for his weapon now, and decided not to heed his own advice.

"Hey, are you okay, man?" he asked quietly.

TK averted his gaze. "I'm fine."

"Liar."

TK didn't deny it. He just kicked a rock down the beach.

"Look, we've seen a lot of terrible crap already tonight, and we're probably going to see more. But we're—"

"I don't know if I'm cut out for this, Davis," TK said, cutting him off.

His hand, much like his voice, was shaking. He had finally found his weapon. It was a small boot knife with an ankle holster attached. He was staring at it in a way that made Davis think that just the sight of the knife was making him sick all over again. Not that he could blame him. Just a glimpse of the bulletproof vest had made him think of all of the sickening scenarios that would make that "weapon" necessary. And now this?

"None of us are," Davis said quietly. "But you can't give up. We're going to be okay."

TK glanced over at him, not looking too sure of that at the moment.

"You should put that on," he said, nodding to the knife as a change of subject. "Just in case."

He could tell that TK wanted to protest, but the ominous words he had tacked on seemed to work. _Just in case_. He knew that much like him, TK wasn't thinking of a just in case scenario dealing with himself. He was probably thinking of Davis or Kari. Just in case he needed it to protect the people he loved. Giving a small nod, TK crouched down to strap the ankle holster to his leg.

Davis was starting to get frustrated with not being able to find his own weapon when he felt his fingers brush against something at the bottom of his bag, and he pulled out a little vial. Confused, he inspected it closer, and his eyes widened before he dropped it to the sand. TK gave Davis a strange look as the vial landed beside him, and he pulled his black jeans over the knife, hiding it from view, before he reached over to pick the bottle up. The skull and crossbones logo was enough to let him know what it was, but just to be sure, he read the label: "_CYANIDE POISON!_"

"I'm not using that," Davis said before TK could ask the question. "It wouldn't be self-defense. It'd be…"

TK closed his hand around the vial as he stood. "I get it," he said. He caught Davis's eye and nodded. "Let's make sure nobody else can use it either."

Davis watched as TK walked up the beach until the waves were up to his ankles, and then he threw the vial as far as he could. Davis watched the little brown bottle disappear into the night and get swallowed up by the ocean.

"Thanks," Davis said as TK walked back up to him.

"As long as we're stuck here," he said, "we do this our way."

Davis nodded. "Agreed."

x X x

Mr Higa watched the screens in the Battle Royale headquarters, right down the hall from where they had kept the kids until it was game time. The screens were showing him exactly what several digidestined back in Odaiba were staring at right now, but he wasn't aware of this. Along with the video feed and the status updates of everybody's profile (as of right now, there were four darkened portraits with the status of DEAD while everybody else's status had been turned to ACTIVE), a map of the whole island was also on the screen with little red and green dots, each one with the letter G or B and a number after it. Only the little green dots were moving as the red ones were already dead. Eventually, the map would tell him which areas were the danger zones as well.

At the moment, his attention was drawn to a cluster of green dots near the north side of the map, not too far from where the school currently stood. A bunch of dots were surrounding one marked G11. Feeling a presence behind him, Mr Higa turned to see Lieutenant Kuroi standing there, smirking.

"I wouldn't worry about her," the lieutenant informed him. "I'm sure she'll get out of that situation just fine."

x X x

A group of students, four boys and one girl, surrounded Nana Miyake. One of the boys, number 15, Danny Sasaki, had her up against a tree, holding her there by the throat. He had his weapon, a submachine gun, pointed at her head, while the only girl of the group, number 20, Takami Yamazaki, went through her bag to find out her weapon. She found a decorative fan. Akio's gang (as they were known by most of their teachers) laughed.

Boy number 5, Yasuharu "Haru" Hayashi, took the fan and danced around the clearing as he fanned himself with it. The group laughed louder. Haru grinned over at Nana and shook his head pitifully at her. "You sure did get a good one, eh?"

Boy number 16 and leader of the gang, Akio Sato, raised an eyebrow at her. "Some transfer student."

"You're Mr Higa's agent," boy number 4, Reiji "Ray" Endo, accused darkly.

Akio raised his sniper rifle and pointed it right at Nana. "And even if you're not, we know you're _not_ a student… So, why are you playing this sick game? Who are you?"

"You think you can just make us all kill each other?" Danny asked, disgusted.

"We're not going to kill anyone," Takami said. "So, tell us why you're here!"

"And you better tell us the truth!" Ray added.

But Akio saw the way that Nana's eyes had flickered to Takami at her words, and he knew a second too late that they had naively shown her all of their cards. Nana kneed Danny in the crotch, and he cried out as he doubled over, before she snatched the submachine gun out of his hands and opened fire on the students surrounding her.

She looked down at the five teenagers crumpled on the ground when she realized that the female was still alive. She was weakly trying to crawl away, and she stared up at Nana with tearfully fearful eyes.

"Why…?" Takami gasped out. "Why…?"

Nana blasted the gun right at Takami's head, killing her, before she moved about the group, cleaning up as she gathered all of their weapons. This had been almost too easy.

BOY NUMBER 15: DAN SASAKI, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 5: YASUHARU HAYASHI, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 4: REIJI ENDO, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 16: AKIO SATO, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 20: TAKAMI YAMAZAKI, DEAD.

33 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

Girl number 4, Sara Goto, and boy number 13, Hugo Ochi, approached the cliff side with equally grim expressions on their faces. Sara did not want to play this game; that was why she had thrown her kit back at the teacher. The second she had heard what they were going to have to do, she made her decision. She was going to commit suicide. And Hugo, as much as he didn't want to die, he wanted to be left alone even less. He would die with her.

"You don't have to do this with me," she said, looking up into Hugo's face as she gave him one more out. They could hear the waves crashing against the rocks below, but they couldn't see it. They were too high up, and the sky was too dark.

Hugo ran his hands up her arms as they heard gunfire in the distance. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you," he whispered. "But I'm not leaving you."

A tear escaped her eyes. "Don't be sorry," she sniffled. "Thank you for coming with me." She let out a distressed sob. "I can't believe anyone would want to play this game."

"What's going to happen to us?" Hugo asked. He looked very much his young 14-years suddenly as he spoke, falling into the age old fear of death.

Sara reached up to cup his face. "I don't know," she admitted, "but I do know one thing. I will never play this game."

"Then neither will I," Hugo said, pressing his forehead to hers.

They shared one last kiss.

"Ready?" she asked.

Hugo shook his head. "No." But they jumped anyway. Their screams were swallowed up by the sea.

GIRL NUMBER 4: SARA GOTO, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 13: HUGO OCHI, DEAD.

31 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

"What's our plan?" Kari asked.

Davis and TK were back in the cave with her. It was nearly impossible to tell that she had anything on under her shirt, even with her slight frame, making the bulletproof vest nearly invisible beneath the yellow and pink shirt. They were taking the time to eat a little bit of the bread that they had been given, though from the way that they were doing more staring than eating, it was obvious that no one really had much of an appetite.

"We stay out of sight, keep our heads down, and just try to ride this out," TK said quietly.

"And then we're dead in three days," Kari whispered.

TK nodded solemnly. Davis looked between his two friends with a slightly angry look on his face. He could hit both of them right now if he honestly couldn't blame them for giving up so quickly. At least they weren't talking about taking the easy way out. Yet.

"_No_," Davis said strongly. "We find others. Others like N-Nobu who don't want to do this, and then we find a way off this island!" His voice wavered slightly as he said his late friend's name. But he had to stay strong, especially when TK and Kari were having such a hard time finding the light. He would have found irony in statement if the situation hadn't been so dire.

"How?" TK asked. "We don't know where we are, and we can't call out for help. I tried the D-Terminal already. I was able to get a message out on the bus, but it's not working now."

"And you heard what they said, Davis," Kari added. "If we try to cause trouble, they'll detonate these collars. We won't get far with these on, and if we try to take them off, same thing."

Davis was watching TK, though, a curious expression on his face. "On the bus? I thought you sent the message to Matt before we got on the bus?"

TK blinked. "I did… but I sent another when I woke up, right before I got this." He pointed to the bump on his forehead.

"So, he knows we're in trouble?" he asked.

TK nodded slowly. "Yeah… but there's nothing he can do, Davis…"

Ignoring him, Davis grinned. "And how much you want to bet he went to Izzy with it? And I bet Izzy is already working on a way to get us out of this mess and out of these things." He tapped his collar with a triumphant smile.

"Maybe…" TK said uncertainly, still not sounding convinced.

Rolling his eyes, Davis resisted the urge to smack his blonde friend and turned to Kari to see what she was thinking, but she was biting her lip uncertainly as well.

"Even if he is," Kari started slowly, "that still leaves us totally in the dark as to what we should do… This thing is government run, and I bet it has a ton of security to stop what he would be trying to do… Izzy might not be able to do anything."

Davis could feel some of his certainty deflating. "We can't think like that… We have to believe that there's a way for all of us to get off this island… Or… Or I dunno…"

TK and Kari shared a worried look, and TK forced himself to take a deep breath, trying to push the dark thoughts aside as he surveyed his friend. Sometimes, Davis was better at holding onto the smallest glimmers of hope than he was, and he knew that no matter how doubtful he was feeling, he couldn't let Davis join in. One of them had to keep it together.

"Okay, Davis," he said. "Let's assume that Izzy is working on getting us out of here… What do we do?"

Davis gave him a grateful smile. "I say that we find others that we can trust."

Kari stared down at her hands. "I… I know you won't like me for saying this, but… I don't know if that's such a good idea… I mean, how do we know _who_ we can trust?"

"They're our friends," Davis said immediately.

TK looked up at him. "Would you really have believed that Masaki would have turned out to be a murderer before today?"

Davis didn't have a response to that. He was studying the mostly untouched bread in his hands before he moved to wrap it back up and stuff it back into his bag. He took a deep breath and nodded.

"Alright," he said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we don't really know who to trust, but I know I can trust the two of you. And I know that not everybody here has any intention of playing this game. We can't just leave them here. We have to at least try to find someone."

Kari blinked. "Like Minami…"

Davis smiled and nodded. "Yeah, Minami. We'll try to find her first. Where do you think she'd go?"

The amber-eyed girl was quiet for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't know… maybe somewhere inside?"

Catching onto the sudden sense of purpose, TK pulled the map out of his backpack and pulled out his flashlight as he started to scan the area. "Alright, we're here…" he said, pointing toward a ridge along the shore, "and the closest indoor structure looks to be… a bath, in that direction." He pointed his flashlight toward the cave wall behind Davis.

The gogglehead smiled gratefully at the Child of Hope. He could tell that TK still was filled with so many doubts, but at least he was trying for his sake. He would take what he could get.

"Great!" He stood and turned toward Kari. "You good to get going?"

Kari wrapped her bread up and put it into the backpack before standing. She tested her injured leg a bit before smiling. "Yeah, it feels a lot better. Thanks, Davis."

TK grabbed his bag and stood as well. "What do we do about people we meet along the way?"

Davis let loose a breath. "We'll figure it out as we go." He grabbed TK's arm as he moved to lead the way out of the cave. "Hey, thanks."

TK gave a half smile. "As long as we're stuck here, we do this our way, right?" He shrugged and started to head out. "Besides, you're too stubborn to let us just sit down and give up."

* * *

Next chapter: The Morning Report


	5. The Morning Report

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. Sorry to disappoint!

**Author's Note**: Thank you to everyone that has reviewed! It seriously makes my day every time I get an email notification. I am sorry that my story made you cry, though! I will admit, though, it's just going to get more brutal from here on out. So, prepare yourselves! But I do hope you enjoy. You know, in the least sadistic way possible. Ha! So, yes...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Five: The Morning Report**

"Sending TK another message?" Sora asked quietly.

Matt was staring at the D-Terminal in his hands before letting loose a helpless sigh. "I know he's not receiving them… But I just… I don't want him to give up, Sora. Even though I couldn't blame him if he did… He just has to hold on. Somehow."

Sora smiled tearfully and put a hand on his arm. "He will. For Kari. He made a promise when he was eight to watch over her, and I don't think he's ever really considered the duty fulfilled."

"And even if that weren't the case, Davis won't let him do anything stupid," Ken said quietly from his spot on the floor.

It was nearly 2 AM in Tokyo, which made it nearly 5 AM where TK, Kari, and Davis were at the moment. Almost everybody had drifted off to sleep already, including Ken's girlfriend who was snuggled into his side and out like a light. Even Tai had eventually passed out. Now, the only ones still awake were Matt, his supportive girlfriend, Ken, and Izzy. The latter of the foursome was the only one still working. He didn't even seem to be aware of another conversation going on. His attention was completely on whatever he was working on.

Matt smiled sadly over at him. "Thanks, Ken."

Ken nodded and leaned his head back against the wall before shutting his eyes, trying to drift off himself. Matt put his arm around Sora's shoulders, and the redhead sunk into him as she moved to try to get some sleep as well. But Matt's eyes were locked on the big screen, watching as Davis, TK, and Kari trekked through the forest of the island.

_Don't give up, TK… Please, don't give up…_

x X x

Unaware that there was anyone looking for her, Minami was hiding out in a small hut she had stumbled across shortly after leaving the school. It was hidden and out of the way of the direction that she figured most of the other students would have gone. When she had first left, she considered waiting for Kari to come out, but Reiji Endo had exited the building after her. She had always been a little bit frightened of Akio's gang.

Now, she kind of wished she had stuck it out. Kari always seemed to cheer her up, even when the girl was down herself. She just had this inner light that made it really hard not to feel happy around. Maybe that was why Davis and TK were always around her. She sighed sadly as she thought of Davis. Kari would never tell her which of the boys she liked (she had to like one of them, right?), so she had never gotten the courage to admit her feelings for Davis out of fear of how Kari felt. But now? She wished she had, just so she'd know…

A sound at the door of the hut sent her ducking behind a set of shelves in a flash. She shut off her flashlight and gripped her weapon, a taser, tightly in her fist. She trembled in fear and held her breath. Unable to take the suspense, Minami pressed her stomach to the floor as she peeked out from behind the shelf. She could see a pair of female feet walking cautiously into the room.

"Hello?" a voice called out.

It was definitely female, just as she had guessed, but it wasn't Kari. She wasn't sure if she should announce her presence or not.

"Hello? Is someone in here? I… I thought I saw a light…" the voice trembled slightly.

Minami felt some of her fear lift. She stood slowly, and the other girl turned her flashlight onto her immediately. She heard a sigh of relief come from the other girl.

"Oh, it's you, Minami," she sighed.

Minami flipped on her flashlight and shone it in her visitor's face before smiling lightly. "Ami!"

Ami Hidaka's eyes flashed toward the taser in Minami's hand apprehensively. "Are you going to try to kill me with that taser?"

The redhead went pink and shook her head. "Of course not! I don't want to play this game." She sighed. "I just… I thought you might be, you know…"

Ami nodded in an understanding manner. "I know. I was worried about that, too." The two girls moved to sit at the table, and Ami gave Minami a long look. "We've never really talked, have we?"

Minami blushed lightly and shook her head. "Not really… But that's okay. I always thought you seemed really cool. I mean, you were always so beautiful and popular… and I'm just me… So, I get it. But I know you and TK seem to get along, and he's a really good guy, so…"

"Well, he gets along with everyone," Ami pointed out. She suddenly nodded at the taser sitting on the table. "You ever use one before?"

"No," she admitted with a small laugh.

Ami laughed too, but Minami missed how forced it was or the slight unsavory glint that shone in her eyes as she did.

"What about you?" Minami asked curiously. "What did you get?"

"I'll show you," Ami said.

She reached into her bag, and in one swift movement, pulled out a sickle and swung it around, straight into Minami's lower back. The redhead's eyes were wide as she stared down at her abdomen where she could see the bloody blade protruding out her front. She was still very much alive, but she was going into shock fast. A fearful tear ran down her cheek. She hadn't wanted to die tonight; she had wanted to live a long life.

Ami leaned in close to Minami's ear. "_This_ is my weapon. I thought it was lame at first, but I guess it's not so bad. I saw Mae and Marie just outside. They've hung themselves in some sick twin suicide pact. That will _never_ be me! I'm not going down without a _fight!_"

The drop-dead gorgeous and suddenly very dangerous girl ripped the sickle back out of Minami's stomach. The shock and blood loss was too much, and the redhead slumped over, dead. Ami kicked her out of her seat, not an ounce of regret on her face.

Outside the hut, hanging from a nearby tree, were the twin sisters that Ami had just mentioned, swinging in the wind.

GIRL NUMBER 18: MAE YAMADA

GIRL NUMBER 19: MARIE YAMADA

GIRL NUMBER 3: MINAMI FUKAZAWA

28 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

The sun was slowly starting to rise along the horizon in a beautiful sunrise, not that any of the students were really paying attention. The three digidestined raced through the woods with TK leading the way to the bathhouse with his map. They hadn't seen anyone along the way, which was both worrisome and a relief at the same time. They had split up the supplies of Kari's kit bag between TK's and Davis's so that she would only have to worry about carrying her backpack, and even then, the boys kept offering to take that from her, too.

Her cough had returned, but she kept reassuring the boys that she was fine. All of the running was getting to her, but she didn't want to quit. They couldn't really quit, so they just kept pushing forward. Her leg seemed to be doing a lot better, though, and only the slightest hints of a limp could be seen. At the moment, Davis was holding onto Kari's wrist, half pulling her along as TK led the way.

Classical music started to be played through all of the speakers strewn throughout Battle Royale Island, and the three digidestined came to an uncertain stop. Davis and TK shared a confused look as they waited to hear what was going on.

"_It's 6AM_," Mr Higa's voice called through when the music stopped. "_Time for you all to wake up. It's another day of kill or be killed!_"

x X x

Boy number 7, Koreya Kikuchi, woke up on the roof of an abandoned restaurant. He had thought it was the best place for sanctuary last night so that he could get two hours of sleep before he figured out a way to get off of the island without having to kill anyone, especially those that he considered to be friends, or before he got killed himself.

The sound of his principal's voice sent shivers down his spine. He was a teacher he had once looked up to, a role model even considering his own aspirations of being a high school teacher one day, but as of six hours ago, he had lost all respect for the man. It was amazing how one little act could ruin a person's image of someone else forever.

"_I will now read the list of your dead friends in the order they died_," Mr Higa voice told him before he started down the list, "_Girl number 5, Kina Hara. Boy number 12, Nobu Narita. Girl number 16, Enya Shimizu. Boy number 1, Masaki Abe…_"

Koreya clutched his weapon tightly in his hand. It was a GPS tracker of everybody's collars on the island though the screen only showed him who was in his immediate area. He scanned the nearby area for signs of anybody, specifically for two people that he was _hoping_ to see there. But just as when he went to sleep the night before, he was alone. Hopefully… he'd be able to see them one last time before the end.

x X x

Girl number 6, Ami Hidaka, stood outside the hut she had forcefully commandeered from Minami, an easy smile on her face as she washed her hair out in a wash bin. She had even gone out of her way to change clothes and freshen up a bit. She perked up as the announcements started, and she smiled slightly, not at all put down by the number of names on the list.

"…_Boy number 15, Dan Sasaki. Boy number 5, Yasuharu Hayashi. Boy number 4, Reiji Endo. Boy number 16, Akio Sato. Girl number 20, Takami Yamazaki. Girl number 4, Sara Goto. Boy number 13, Hugo Ochi. Girl number 18, Mae Yamada. Girl number 19, Marie Yamada. Girl number 3, Minami Fukazawa…_"

A cruel smile appeared on Ami's face as she heard the last name mentioned. That was her handiwork. All she needed was one kill to let her know that she could do this. She was going to survive, and nobody was going to stop her.

x X x

"No… Minami…" Kari gasped tearfully as she sunk to her knees.

TK watched her sadly as Davis started to rub her back comfortingly. Their whole reason for heading to the bathhouse just died with Minami, leaving them directionless once again. TK had seen the way Davis's face had winced with pain at the reminder of Nobu's death, and he had been almost relieved at the chance to sink to his knees as he comforted Kari, taking the moment to grieve, too. He was putting on a strong front, but TK knew that Davis was hurting just as much as Kari was right now.

"_Twelve dead, not including the two that we lost before the games even started._" The laughter in Mr Higa's words was disgusting but easily notable. "_Not bad! Not bad at all… Now, for the dangers zones. Get your maps ready! I'll be reading off the zones and times. So, listen up!_"

Seeing that Davis and Kari were still too distracted by their most recent loss to even think about marking their maps, TK quickly brought his green backpack around to pull out a pen. He braced his map up against a nearby tree for something to write on, and he started to mark the map as Mr Higa gave him the zones.

"_Starting at 7AM, B-5! That's B-5! Next, at 9AM, E-8! Then, at 11 AM, F-2! And that is all. Listen… I know it's tough when friends die on you, but hang in there! I will be in touch._"

It was almost as if Mr Higa had been talking to Davis and Kari personally, but neither of the two heard his words. Kari was crying softly against Davis's shoulder. TK could tell from the way that Davis's eyes were squeezed shut that he was trying very hard not to join her. He watched them, trying not to feel too out of place or awkward or even _angry_ at how close they were, but he knew he had to say something.

As if being able to sense his eyes on him, Davis looked up at him. "What?"

TK cleared his throat. "Kari…"

She sobbed. "Minami's dead…"

"I know, but…" He was feeling a bit like an insensitive jerk at the moment.

Davis could see him struggling. "What is it?"

"We've got to move," TK said finally. "This is going to be a danger zone in an hour. We don't have much time."

The gogglehead stared at him for a moment before his words finally registered. He forced himself to his feet and pulled Kari up with him. She looked between the two boys.

"But what now? Where are we supposed to go?" she asked, tearfully.

TK shook his head. "We can figure that out later. Right now, we've just got to go."

x X x

"I can't believe 14 of our classmates are already dead," sighed boy number 11, Teppei Nakamura, as he leaned against a tree.

His map was in his hand after he had just written down the danger zones. He was in no mood to fight, and he knew that boy number 3, Jimon Chiba, wasn't either. They had met up together by chance and decided to stick together. Honestly, Teppei was glad for the company. He didn't care about the rumors that flew around school about the other boy being gay. In fact, if he was being honest with himself (and when was a better time to be honest with one's self than right before they were possibly going to die?), he found it quite intriguing.

"Hey, don't sweat it," Jimon said, as he came back from his bathroom break. "We'll watch each other's backs, okay?"

Teppei smiled slightly. "Yeah…" He looked off. "Maybe we should try to find some others."

"Like who?" Jimon asked.

It was no secret that he had never really gotten along with many other people. Beyond just being shy, ever since the rumors started up that he was gay, more than just a few of the students started to act like he had some sort of plague. Granted, there were a few good ones out there, but he was finding it hard to trust anyone at the moment except for Teppei.

"I don't know… Someone…?"

"If anyone was going to survive, I would have guessed Akio and his gang of friends," Jimon said. "But I guess it doesn't matter how menacing you are back home… Here, everything is different. Nothing matters. Anybody could die at any moment."

Teppei stepped toward him and hesitated before he grabbed his hand. "You're right. We'll just watch out for each other. C'mon."

x X x

The three digidestined weren't speaking. TK didn't know how to start the conversation, and Davis and Kari were too lost in their own thoughts to speak. TK had taken Kari's bag from her when her limping had started to get worse, but other than that short exchange, they hadn't really said much. Now that Minami was dead, their mission was over before it had even begun. TK knew that they should talk about what they were doing or where they were going, but maybe this _was_ what they were doing. They were just going.

They were walking along a hillside with TK in the lead with his map once again. Kari walked a few paces behind him, and Davis took up the rear. Kari coughed quietly into her hand (it was getting worse, but she didn't want the boys to worry) and sighed tiredly. From the way the sun was beating down on them, it was probably already at least 9 AM if not later. But it felt like they had been awake for much longer than that. It was probably all of the running and traveling they were doing.

Davis hid a yawn of his own when the bushes to his left suddenly came to life. Boy number 19, Wataru Tanaka, suddenly leapt out at him, swinging a hand axe. Davis yelped and hit the ground, just barely dodging the blade as it sailed over his head. TK and Kari spun around as they heard him yell, and their eyes widened.

"Davis!" TK cried.

Wataru swung the axe again, and Davis rolled out of the way. TK grabbed his backpack and threw it right at his friend's attacker. It slammed into his back, and Wataru spun around, his eyes wide and slightly manic as he suddenly realized that Davis wasn't alone. Kari recognized him. They were on Yearbook together, and she had always thought he was pretty sweet.

"Wataru!" she gasped. "What are you doing? Stop!"

But he didn't even seem to hear her. He just spun back toward Davis who was scrambling to get to his feet and raised the axe again. "I'll get you!" he said, moving to swing, "I'll get you!"

TK leapt forward and grabbed Wataru's wrist. "STOP!"

Wataru, though the same height as TK, was at least 25 kilos heavier. He elbowed TK off of him roughly with ease, causing the basketball player to hit the ground hard, before changing his target as he swung his axe toward the blonde.

"Whoa!" TK yelped as he grabbed one of the bags he'd dropped and raised it over his head as a shield. It wasn't until the axe was ripping through the polyester fabric did he realize that he had snatched up Kari's bag. Wataru ripped the axe out of the bag and raised it to swing again. TK started to crawl backwards using his elbows as he continued to hold the bag in front of him for protection. He thought about the knife strapped to his ankle, but in the moment, he realized that he was too scared to let go of the bag to actually reach for it, even if he had the guts to use it.

The axe connected with the bag again, and TK could feel the contents of the bag spilling out onto his stomach, and he knew that his shield was down to literally nothing. It wouldn't last through another swing. He got ready to roll out of the way, when Davis was suddenly there. The gogglehead let out a yell as he tackled the chubby boy around the middle, and Wataru had just a moment of crying out in surprise, before the two boys went tumbling through the brush and down the side of the hill.

TK laid there stunned for a moment before finally jumping to his feet. "Davis!"

Kari was already trying to carefully scale the slope, and he followed her lead. He could see the two boys at the bottom of the hill, and his eyes zeroed in on Davis who was clutching his bruised ribs. Davis rolled onto his side and forced himself to his knees, half expecting and ready for Wataru to come at him again, until he finally realized what he was seeing. Wataru was shakily getting to his knees as well, but his axe wasn't in his hand anymore. Instead, it was buried into the top of his skull.

Davis felt the blood leave his face. "W-Wataru…? Wataru, are you… Can you…?"

Wataru's gaze was glazed over, but he managed to shuffle toward Davis. "No… no… I'm sorry… My fault… My fault… I'm okay… I'm… I'm okay…"

And then he fell forward, dead.

Unseen from the digidestined, girl number 21, Anna Yoshida, witnessed the scene. Her eyes filled with fearful tears as she stared at Davis with a newfound dread. Silently, she turned away and ran off, not wanting to be discovered by the soccer player turned murderer.

"Davis!" Kari called out as she finally got to the bottom of the hill safely. "Oh, Davis, are you okay?"

"Did I kill him?" Davis whispered, shaking all over. He turned his desperate gaze onto his friends before jumping to his feet and grabbing TK roughly, shaking him in his grip. "You were watching! _Did I kill him!?_"

TK's blue eyes were wide, but he reached out to grab Davis right back, steadying him where he stood. "It was accident, Davis! It wasn't your fault. Okay? It wasn't your fault."

Seeing that Davis was nearly hyperventilating as he stared at Wataru's dead form, TK pulled him into a hug and turned them so that he couldn't see Wataru anymore. Davis didn't fight him. He just held tightly onto the fabric of TK's shirt as he tried to pull himself together. After a long moment, Davis finally managed to calm down enough to pull away. His gaze was averted to the ground, and TK knew that there was a damp spot on his shirt that his friend was hoping he wouldn't notice. He had no intention of commenting on it.

"Davis," Kari said quietly, "are you alright?"

Davis pulled off his goggles to run his hand through his hair as he tried to find the words. "Uh… yeah… I, uh…"

A loud _bang_ cut him off as a bullet ricocheted off of a rock by Kari's foot, and they jumped back with a scream. Boy number 21, Ben Yamane, was coming down the hill, a revolver in his shaking hands. His dark hair was pointing in every direction, and his coke bottle glasses were skewed on his face.

"Everybody's serious, huh?" Ben muttered to himself, his eyes darting from the digidestined to Wataru's body and back. "Fine. I can be serious, too… I'll survive… I'll go to a good school… I have a future… Not like the rest of you… Partying, throwing everything away… Don't even care… I'll survive…"

"Ben, don't!" TK shouted, but he was already backing up, having already learned that nobody was really listening anymore.

Ben pulled the trigger again. _BANG!_ This one went flying over their heads and hit a tree. Taking that as a sign that talking was over, Davis yelled, "Run!" before they took off. They could hear geeky Ben chasing after them, and he fired again, another shot that missed. They broke through a line of trees just as a loud _crack!_ of a gunshot rung out through the air. It was a much louder and different sound to the tiny revolver that Ben was carrying.

Davis spun just in time to see Ben get swept clean off of his feet. He hit the ground hard, and he made no move to get back up. Considering the large blotchy red spot on his chest, it wasn't hard to figure out why. TK and Kari were on the ground, too, having ducked the second they had heard the shotgun, and Davis slowly moved to join them as Nana Miyake casually strolled over to Ben's body and picked his revolver up.

The female convict smirked at the trio and cocked the revolver before pointing it at Davis between the eyes. "What weapons do you have?"

"I… I had poison, but I threw it in the ocean…" Davis stuttered out, his heart hammering in his chest.

She snorted lightly. "If you were looking for a way to check out, that was probably your best bet. But there's a cliff over that way if you want a second option." Nana turned the gun onto TK next. "What about you?"

Hand shaking slightly, TK pulled up his pants leg to show off the boot knife strapped to his calf. Nana gave a condescending smirk before moving her gun's aim to Kari. Kari opened her mouth to respond when she felt TK grab her hand. He was pushing his D-3 into her palm. Though confused, she didn't question it as she moved to hold it out as her answer. Nana's blank expression obviously meant that she had no idea what it was, and she shook her head, almost in a pitying manner.

"Well, you three are screwed," she announced before she moved to walk off.

"That's it?" Davis blurted out, unable to keep his mouth shut.

Nana waved at them over her shoulder. "I don't kill infants until time's running out," she said scathingly, "but I'm sure somebody else will do the job for me. And if not, better watch out."

BOY NUMBER 19: WATARU TANAKA, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 21: BEN YAMANE, DEAD.

26 PLAYERS TO GO.

The three digidestined watched her leave, and they didn't breathe again until they could no longer hear her footsteps. And then TK reached over and smacked Davis upside the head.

"Ow!"

"_That's it?_" TK said, repeating the words that Davis had said to their would-be killer. "What were you thinking?"

He gave a guilty look. "I wasn't?"

"Well, all that matters is that we're okay," Kari said before moving to hand TK his digivice. "Why'd you want me to say that my weapon was your D-3 anyway?"

TK moved to hook it back to his belt before shaking his head. "For someone like her, I figured having a bulletproof vest would be a goldmine. And she doesn't exactly seem like the type to ask nicely. I just didn't want to chance it."

Kari smiled softly. "Well, thank you."

He stood and helped Kari to her feet. "C'mon. We gotta go get our stuff before somebody else finds it first."

x X x

"What's Matt doing?" Mimi asked as she watched the blonde moving around in the kitchen.

"Making us something to eat," Sora said, also watching him through the doorway. "In the chaos last night, none of us ate, so…" She smiled sadly. "Plus, I think he just wants to keep busy. He wishes there was more he could do."

"Actually, that sounds like a good idea," Mimi said. "I'm going to go help."

She walked into the kitchen, and Sora watched them converse for a moment before Mimi got to work. Shaking her head at the sight, Sora pulled one of the chairs closer to the computer desk and sat down. Izzy wasn't typing anymore, and for a moment, Sora wondered if he had fallen asleep. She leaned in close, trying to see what he was working on, when he suddenly jumped.

"Sora!" he gasped. "What are you doing?"

She smiled lightly. "Sorry. I thought you were asleep."

Izzy shook his head. "No. I can't sleep. Not until…" he trailed off.

"You're going to have to sleep at some point," she pointed out softly. But Izzy chose not to respond as he went back to typing away on his keyboard. She leaned in again, this time in his view as not to startle him, before she finally realized what he was looking at. "What are you doing? Is that the Battle Royale website?"

"Not officially," Izzy said. "I'm getting inside their systems. If I can, I'm going to disable the system long enough for us to get a message to Davis to let him know that they can take off their collars. That way, they'll be able to just play dead until it's all over."

Sora frowned lightly. "What about when they end up needing a ride back to Japan? Won't that kind of give it away?"

Izzy shook his head. "I haven't quite thought that far ahead," he admitted. "But I figure… let's get them out of immediate danger first. We can worry about everything else after. But… I'm hoping that if I can get in even for a short time, I might be able to shut them down for good. Wipe their systems, you know? Make it impossible for them to finish this sick game at all."

She searched her friend's face for a moment. "What you're doing is extremely illegal, isn't it?"

He hesitated, his fingers pausing in their movements as he took in her question, before he started right back up again. "Yes," he answered finally. "I could… go to prison for a very, very long time. And that's only if they don't consider what I'm doing treason."

"Treason?" Sora asked, surprised.

"My plan is to hack into a government website, disrupt security protocols, unleash a virus if I can," he said, pausing for a moment to take a breath. "That's all at the level of cyberterrorism. I could, quite possibly, be accused of committing treason right now."

"Izzy…"

"But I don't care," he said. "I know I'm doing the right thing, the law be damned."

* * *

Next Chapter: State of Emergency


	6. State of Emergency

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. Or most things, actually. Ha.

**Author's Note**: First a warning: This chapter has a scene that has quite a lot of profane language. I believe this scene is the worst of the whole story, and there are some terms used that could be taken as offensive. Just wanted to give a head's up to anybody out there who might be sensitive to that kind of thing.

TK and Davis aren't built for this world. So, really, neither of them have really acclimated to the environment, but they're doing the best they can. Davis's approach is very hopeful, very optimistic, which is why when he's faced with the fact that he _won't_ be able to get through this without hurting anyone - accidental or otherwise - it's kind of a shock to the system. Meanwhile, TK is more realistic (and, ironically, less hopeful) but also more analytical and logical. He knew not to try to remove the collars, and he knew not to tell Nana that Kari had a bulletproof vest. Davis keeps them from giving up, and TK keeps them from doing something stupid. So, what about Kari? Well, I'll put it like this... If TK is the brain (the thinker), and Davis is the spine (the mover), then that leaves Kari as the heart.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Six: State of Emergency**

When they finally returned to the top of the hill, they quickly realized that Kari's bag was a lost cause. They gathered what they could find and hadn't been completely destroyed by Wataru's axe and distributed it between their four remaining packs. After a small argument that led to Kari carrying Davis's backpack and the two boys switching off every so often between carrying two or one of the other bags, they continued on, heading down the same path and in the same direction they had been on before.

"Do we still want to try to find people we trust?" TK asked quietly.

Unlike before, they were walking side-by-side as they moved toward an undecided destination. They just knew that staying in one spot didn't feel very safe.

Davis gave him a look. "Tenchi?" he guessed.

TK shrugged. "And Gai and Mickey… I know you don't like them—"

"I never said that," Davis protested. TK just raised an eyebrow at him, and the gogglehead sighed. "I wouldn't… and didn't hang out with them personally… but I'm sure they're good guys. Especially if you say they are."

"I do," TK said.

"Then, okay," Davis said, nodding. "You alright with that, Kari?"

The girl in question lifted her gaze from the ground and blinked, looking a tad confused. "Uh… whatever you two think is best…"

Davis and TK watched her for a moment in concern, but she didn't give them any clue as to what was going on. Davis gave a confused shrug and shook his head. Maybe it was one of those girl things that guys would just never be able to get, or maybe she was just finally realizing how bad their situation was. They were all due a small freak out moment, right?

"Where do you think they'd be?" he asked after a long moment of silence, bringing them back to the conversation at hand.

TK blinked. "Uh…" He shook his head. "Right. I was thinking about that, and…" He pulled out the map and unfolded it so that Davis could see it as well before he pointed toward a building structure on the southeast end of the map. "I think they'll be here."

"What makes you so sure?" Davis asked, surprised at how specific TK was being.

"Back in Odaiba, there's this abandoned warehouse in Tenchi's neighborhood, and that's pretty much where he hangs out all the time," TK explained. "This building is also an old warehouse. I'm positive that's where he'd go."

"It's on the other side of the island," Davis pointed out.

TK sighed. "I know. It's up to you."

Davis shook his head and opened his mouth to respond when suddenly loud shouting filled the air. The three of them came to a sudden stop as they looked around, confused.

"Everybody! Stop fighting! Please, hear us out!"

The shouting was being amplified by something, but it wasn't coming from the speakers. Sharing a look, TK, Kari, and Davis took off running toward the sound. The voice was definitely female, and it sounded very familiar. It wasn't until they reached the edge of the forest and were left staring out across the grassy hills and fields of the island could they see the source of the yelling.

Girls number 14, Juri Nishimura, and number 15, Karen Oonishi, stood on top of one of the tallest hills. Juri was holding a megaphone that she was talking into while Karen was waving a white towel over her head. The two girls were a lot like TK in the respect that they had always gotten along with everybody, and their pacifistic attitudes had always been a large part of that.

"This is Juri with Karen on the cliffs of North Mountain!" Juri shouted into the megaphone. "Everybody, come here! We'll figure this out together! We don't want to fight… Right, Karen?"

Karen took the megaphone even as she continued to swing the white towel over her head. "This is Karen! Please, join us! Let's think this through together!"

Davis smiled slightly and glanced over at TK and Kari. "Now, that's what I'm talking about. C'mon!"

He started to leave the safety of the tree coverage when TK grabbed his arm suddenly, stopping him.

"Where are you going?" he hissed.

Davis gave him a confused look. "To join them. They don't want to fight, and neither do we! We should join them."

"Davis, I can almost guarantee that we weren't the only ones that heard them," TK pointed out, "or that everybody that did has the same thinking as us."

"If they're in danger, that's even more reason to go to them!" Davis argued, moving to try to pull away, but TK's grip on his wrist was stronger than he realized.

"Without weapons?" TK asked. "We'll just all end up getting killed!"

"What do you suggest we do then?" Davis snapped, starting to get frustrated. "We can't just leave them there to die!"

TK narrowed his eyes slightly before yanking Davis back with enough force that the gogglehead lost his balance and fell to his knees. Kari, who had been watching the argument uncertainly, ran to his side.

"Davis!"

Davis turned to glare at the blonde. "Why, you—!"

But TK wasn't listening. He had run forward, just past the line of trees, to cup his hands around his mouth before shouting, as loud as he could, "JURI! KAREN! _RUN!_"

Up on the hill, the two girls heard TK's words, and they glanced at each other alarmed. They had spent most of the night trying to figure out what they were going to do after finding each other again, and they realized that there was just no way that they could play. But they didn't want to die either, so they took Juri's weapon (the megaphone) and decided that they had to try to get out of this a different way.

"Was that TK?" Karen asked quietly to her friend. "It sounded like his voice, right?"

Juri nodded. "I think so. It sure sounded like him."

Karen smiled slyly at her friend before bringing the megaphone back up to her lips. "Takeru!" she called out into the megaphone, "We're over here! Come join us! Juri has always had a crush on—"

The curly-haired girl gasped and reached over to try to steal the megaphone away from her best friend. "You idiot!" she shrieked, red in the face.

The shorter girl was all giggles as she finally relinquished the megaphone to her friend. So caught up in their antics, they didn't hear anyone coming up behind them. The gunfire came out of nowhere as Shingo Kobayashi opened fire on them with his machine gun. The girls screamed in shock and pain before collapsing to the ground. Juri was killed instantly, but Karen was left writhing in pain, still trying to piece together what just happened.

Ami Hidaka watched from the bushes nearby. She had been just seconds from doing the exact same thing, but it looked like the orange-haired convict beat her to it. Seeing that he had the better weapons, she decided to cut her losses, and she turned to run off.

"Oh my god," Kari whispered tearfully.

TK and Davis could only stare white-faced up at the hillside where they could see Shingo approaching the two girls. He was as cool as could be as he kicked Karen, forcing her onto her back. She sobbed in pain, and he fired his gun at her forehead to put her out of her misery.

GIRL NUMBER 14: JURI NISHIMURA, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 15: KAREN OONISHI, DEAD.

24 PLAYERS TO GO.

Shingo relieved Karen of her weapon (two grenades) before standing and looking in the direction that the three digidestined were in.

"We have to go," TK whispered, realizing that Shingo had definitely heard his shouting.

But Davis didn't seem to be on the same page. He jumped to his feet and ran to TK's side so that he could shout up the mountain, "KAREN! JURI! ANSWER ME! KAREN! JUR—!"

TK practically jumped onto Davis's back in his haste to clamp a hand over his mouth. "Shut up!" he snapped. "Are you out of your mind!?"

Davis struggled against him, so angry that he seemed so damn _callous_ about it all suddenly. He elbowed his friend sharply in the gut to try to get him off, and TK grunted in slight pain. With his grip loosened, Davis managed to turn around and shove the basketball player away from him roughly, and TK stumbled back, just barely managing to stay on his feet. Davis could have hit him right then had Kari's voice not cut through his anger.

"Stop it!" she yelled. "He's coming! We've got to get out of here!"

The convict was starting to make his way down the mountain and heading right in their direction. His machine gun was resting on his shoulder and he had hooked the grenades to his belt, making him a very obvious threat. TK sent a glare toward Davis that spoke volumes without him having to say a word. Davis could practically hear the always annoying _I told you so_ hanging in the air, but Kari didn't give either of them a chance to continue their argument. She grabbed TK's arm roughly as she took charge.

"Which way to the warehouse?"

"Uh…" He pulled out his map and quickly found it before pointing off through the trees. "That way."

Then, without waiting to see if either of them wanted to protest, she took off running. TK and Davis glared at each other before they followed after her, leaving Shingo Kobayashi behind them in their wake.

x X x

Once again, the air was filled with classical music from the speaker system as the sun reached the highest point in the sky. For most of the students that were still alive on the island it was the only way they now knew that it was already noon the next day. It was hard to believe that they had already been playing the game for 12 hours.

"_Good afternoon, all!_" Mr Higa's voice bellowed from the speakers as the music came to a close. "_Is everybody getting hungry? I suggest you all take a little break from the slaughter and have some lunch! Though, from the look of this morning's list, I would think you all had already done that… Last night, you did such a good job! But this morning, you've all slowed down considerably…_"

x X x

"Are TK and Davis still fighting?" Cody asked.

He moved to join Yolei and Ken at the computer desk as the couple shared a slightly exasperated look. Everybody knew about how bad TK and Davis's fights could get sometimes, but they all knew that now was definitely not the time for them to revisit those moments. And yet, the boys couldn't seem to be able to help themselves. If Yolei had the ability, she would reach through the screen and smack them both! Well, actually, if she had that ability, she'd reach through the screen and pull all three of them back home, but that was another matter entirely.

"They're mostly ignoring each other right now," Ken answered finally.

"Those two…" Yolei growled. "When we get them home, I'm going to give them a piece of my mind!"

Cody's expression darkened. "When…"

Yolei shot him a look. "Yes, _when_."

Tai entered the room, rescuing Cody from the tirade that Yolei was about to go on for voicing his doubts in the situation. He looked around before frowning.

"Where's Izzy?" he practically snapped.

"Sleeping," Ken said. "He was up all night."

"For a _reason_," Tai growled, turning to storm off toward Izzy's room.

"Tai, wait!" Yolei said, jumping to her feet. "Ken and I have this covered for now. There's nothing more that he could do… especially not sleep deprived."

Tai stopped before turning to look back at them. He didn't appear to fully believe them, but he nodded slowly nonetheless. "Fine. How's the infiltration of the network going?"

"Stalled," Ken admitted, "but _not_ because Izzy is sleeping. We're stuck on the password. We're running an algorithm to try to decrypt it with the computer automatically trying to get in with each new guess… But we have no idea if they'll be able to tell that someone's trying to hack in or not."

The blank look on Tai's face told them that he really had no idea what they just said. Yolei smiled lightly.

"We're waiting to see what the computer spits out," she translated.

Tai nodded slowly before he sunk into one of the available chairs. His eyes scanned the big screen just as classical music started to sound from the speakers. He shot them a confused look.

"What's going on?"

Yolei spun back toward the computer before checking the time. "Afternoon report. We were asleep during the morning one, but Izzy told us that Mr Higa starts them off with classical music."

Cody frowned. "Depressing."

They nodded before falling silent to listen to his words.

"…_But oh well. Here's the list of those who went down this morning: Boy number 19, Wataru Tanaka. Boy number 21, Ben Yamane. Girl number 14, Juri Nishimura. Girl number 15, Karen Oonishi. A disappointing total of four. Calling for peace was a good idea, but you can't win them all. Or, more appropriately, you all can't win!…"_

"And to think, I used to respect that guy," Tai muttered to himself.

The others nodded solemnly, agreeing with his words. Yolei sighed as another password failed to get them into the network. This was proving particularly difficult to hack into, but she just hoped that they figured it out before it was too late.

x X x

Davis, Kari, and TK had left the forest behind a while ago, and now they were walking through the grassy hills of the island toward the warehouse. But without the shade of the trees, they were all starting to feel the heat, so they almost sighed in relief when the afternoon report began. At least it meant they could take a break. Sitting on the ground, TK pulled out his map and began to mark down the danger zones.

"…_Now, for the danger zones and hours: an hour from now at 1PM, I-4. Then from 3PM, E-9. From 5PM, F-1! Don't wait too long to get back to killing now. After all, the sooner everyone's dead, the sooner the game will be over!" _

TK finished marking the last zone before he reached up to wipe at his forehead. He looked over at Kari who was red in the face from the heat, and she managed a small smile.

"Is the warehouse still clear?" she asked quietly.

He glanced down at the map to make sure before nodding. "Yeah. We should have a straight shot there." He paused before adding, "Assuming that's still where we want to go?" He was looking at Davis as he added this.

The gogglehead didn't spare him a glance as he readjusted his bags on his shoulders. "That's what I said, isn't it? Let's go."

x X x

After relocating to a less bloody hut, Ami Hidaka spent most of the morning scouting the area for food or other supplies that she figured would be useful. That was, until she had been attracted by Karen and Juri's foolish shouting. She was almost disappointed that she hadn't gotten to them first. But since then, she hadn't seen a single soul, and she was starting to get a bit bored. Ami made her way back to the hut and walked straight through the door before she froze. She wasn't alone.

Girl number 9, Naeko Maeda, stood there with a pistol in her hand. She almost smiled when she realized who it was, but it was definitely not a pleasant smile.

"Don't move," she ordered before stepping forward and pulling the sickle away from Ami from where it had been resting through one of the belt loops of her jean shorts.

"Naeko…" Ami said apprehensively.

"I'm so glad I finally found you," Naeko said with a false cheerfulness. "I was just dying to see how the school _slut_ was handling this situation."

Ami shot her a hurt look. "Don't be cruel!"

"It's not cruel if it's true," Naeko said easily. She considered the sickle in her hand and smirked. "This is your weapon, huh? Kind of lame."

The gorgeous brunette crossed her arms over her chest in a scared manner. "Yeah, I guess so…"

Naeko leaned in close, her eyes narrowed. "Marie's dead, isn't she?"

"With her sister."

"So, you were there…" Naeko realized. "I also found Minami. She'd been impaled with something sharp… like a sickle!"

She suddenly let out a yell as she swung the sickle with all of her strength toward Ami. Ami screamed and ducked, just as the sickle buried into the wooden plank over her head. Naeko cocked the gun and pointed it down at Ami's kneeling form.

"Ami! Do you have Minami's weapon?" Naeko snapped.

"W-what?" Ami sobbed as she lied through her teeth. "Of course not!"

"Cut the crap!" Naeko yelled. "You screw all the boys, and you just couldn't leave mine alone! Naoki and I were happy, but you just had to put your hands all over him! And then Marie… You were turning her into _you!_ Pimping her out to every guy that you'd already screwed! But Mae didn't like that… You probably hung them both out of spite!"

"Me? String them both up?" she cried. "You're out of your mind!"

"You're a dirty whore!" Naeko screamed. "You deserve to die!"

She kicked Ami hard in the head, sending her crashing into the floor with a yelp of pain. Ami rolled onto her back as she stared up at Naeko tearfully.

"Why…?" she sniffled. "Why does everybody gang up on me? What did I do?"

"Stop _lying!_" she shrieked.

But before Naeko could continue with her rant, she suddenly bolted up, her dark eyes wide as she stared down at Ami in shock who was now wearing an evil smirk. The taser's metal prongs were buried into the ebony-haired girl's stomach, effectively stunning her. The gun dropped out of her hand with a clatter, before she fell forward on top of Ami. The gorgeous brunette pushed her off and snatched up the pistol before standing, pointing the gun down at Naeko with a malicious grin on her face.

"This was Minami's weapon," Ami explained, holding up the taser in her left hand. "Not bad, eh? But this?" She showed off the pistol she had just stolen from the fallen girl. "_This_ is what I was after."

"You bitch!" Naeko managed to say.

"Nothing wrong with killing in this situation," Ami said, shrugging the comment off. "Any last words?"

"You murdering slut."

"I'll take that under advisement."

_BANG!_

The shot filled the room as soon as Ami pulled the trigger, killing the ebony-haired 14-year-old girl.

GIRL NUMBER 9: NAEKO MAEDA, DEAD.

23 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

Davis led the way as he stalked through the grassy fields. He actually didn't know where he was going, but he really didn't feel like staring at the back of TK's dumb blond head at the moment. TK was a few paces behind, but his eyes rarely left Davis as he followed after him. He knew that Davis was angry with him, but a part of him was afraid to hear exactly why. He feared that he had lost all of Davis's respect back there; he wasn't sure if that was something he could win back if he did. Trailing quite a bit further behind was Kari. She hadn't said a word since the noon report, only coughing weakly every so often, and the boys were too wrapped up in their anger for each other to notice how far she had lagged behind.

"Are you really just going to refuse to talk to me?" TK finally said.

The gogglehead kept trudging on and made no move to respond.

"We could be dead in two minutes!"

Davis finally stopped long enough to shoot him a betrayed glare. "You should have let me go to them!"

"Then you'd be dead, too!" TK protested.

"You don't know that," he said.

"Yes, I do!" Davis made to storm off again, but TK reached forward and forced him to turn around. "He would have killed you!"

Davis stepped in close to him, his eyes flashing with accusation. "Juri liked you."

TK gave him a confused look. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You, of all people, should have wanted to save her!" Davis spat out.

"I did…" TK said, dropping his hand. "Davis… You… You know I did… You can't think that I'm the type of person… I never wanted _any_ of this to happen… Not to anyone…"

"Then why didn't you let me go to them?" Davis said. "I could have done something!"

"You're the one that told me not to give up, remember?" TK gave him a long hard look. "I don't know what that means to you, and I don't know what you were trying to tell me when you said it. But what that means to me is that I need to do whatever I can to keep you and Kari safe, no matter what. So, yeah, I did stop you from running out there, and yeah… Maybe you could have come up with some miraculous on-the-spot plan to save them… But you also could have died. So, be pissed at me all you want, but I would do it again."

The glare on Davis's face wasn't quite as intense as it was the last few minutes as he finally looked away, staring down at the grass by their feet. Considering how much blood was being spilled on this island, it was an almost cheerful green. He closed his eyes tiredly and rubbed at his forehead.

"TK…" he started.

"Kari!" TK shouted.

Kari knew that she should try to intervene in TK and Davis's ridiculous fight, but she naively hoped that her brother's philosophy that boys just needed to fight it out sometimes would be right for once. And even more than that, she was having a hard time seeing straight. Taking the time while they were stopped to try to catch her breath, Kari wasn't even aware that she had sunk to her knees. The whole world was feeling a bit topsy-turvy.

_Pull it together, Kari… C'mon, pull yourself together…_

She only half heard TK say her name. And then he was there, at her side, long before her mind had even caught up with the fact that he had even called out. He was kneeling in front of her, his blue eyes staring down into her face with that worried look he seemed to wear far too often around her. Why was she always making him worry?

"Are you okay?" Davis asked.

He was worried, too, and he had a reason to be. Kari was looking strangely flushed and pale at the exact same time. Her cheeks were an alarming pink while the rest of her face was like snow. She was doubled over on her knees, nearly on all fours if she hadn't had her arms wrapped around herself. She blinked blurrily up at him as his question took a moment to make sense.

"…I'm fine," she lied. Badly. "I'm just a little tired."

TK ignored her words as he pressed his hand against her forehead. His eyebrows knitted in concern immediately. "You are _not_," he said, moving to grab her arms as she wavered where she sat, trying to keep her steady. "You're dripping with sweat, and your forehead is on fire."

"Is it her leg?" Davis asked anxiously. "Did it get infected?"

TK grabbed the scarf and pulled it down to get a peek at the wound. "No, it looks fine," he said, covering it back up.

Just then, Kari started to cough weakly. She didn't even have the energy to cover her mouth. Her eyelids felt so heavy. She just wanted to sleep. That's all she needed. Just a little sleep and then everything would be okay. Maybe she would wake up to find that all of this had simply been some terrible nightmare.

"Kari," TK said, trying to get her attention. "How long have you felt like this? Do you remember? Before the morning report… After?" The amber-eyed girl didn't answer, and TK cursed under his breath. "Davis, did you find Kari's medicine when you were putting her stuff into your bag?"

Davis shook his head. "No… the only thing in bottles I found was some lotion and toothpaste."

"Change of plans." TK pulled out his map and scanned it quickly. "There's a clinic just outside of the village, just to the northwest of here."

"That's in the complete opposite direction," Davis reminded him. It wasn't because he didn't want to go; he just wanted to make sure TK knew what he was saying.

The blonde looked up at him with a determined look. "We don't have a choice." He shook Kari slightly, trying to rouse her from the drowsy state she had fallen into. "Hey, Kari… We're heading to the clinic. We just need you to get up. It's not that far," he promised.

But the only response he got was Kari slumping forward and falling into his arms as she passed out. His eyes widened in alarm.

"Kari! _Kari!_"

* * *

Next Chapter: On Expired Time


	7. On Expired Time

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. But thank you for thinking that I did! (Not.)

**Author's Note**: So sorry for not updating yesterday, guys! I had a terrible headache all day, which made it almost impossible to do anything on the computer. But I am here now, and hopefully this is not too much of a disappointment. Though, I will admit, this chapter has the least amount of Davis, TK, and Kari out of any chapter, but I still like the way it came out. Hopefully you do too!

Also, a thank you to the alpha phoenix who pointed out a very embarrassing typo in my title! I had written Digmon instead of Digimon. Ah! So embarrassing. But I am so relieved that someone pointed it out for me, so I feel the need to reiterate my thanks once again!

As for the length of this story... It's going to end on the very (unlucky) chapter 13. So, we are pretty close to the climax of the story. So, thank you to everyone who is reviewing and reading. It means so much to me!

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Seven: On Expired Time**

TK and Davis were running as fast as their legs could carry them, which was a lot slower than any other day. Davis was carrying all four of their bags, one on each shoulder and one in each hand, while TK carried Kari on his back. They weren't thinking about others on the island at the moment; they were only thinking about each other and getting Kari to the clinic with some blind hope that everything they needed would be there. Every so often, Kari would wake up in a feverish haze to apologize or claim that she was fine before she would drift back off again. This, more than anything, worried TK. It reminded him too much of Machinedramon's territory, but this time, he was pretty sure that they were in even more danger.

They were both dripping with sweat and wheezing by the time the clinic came into view. As much as they wanted to just burst through the doors to find what they needed, the boys knew that they couldn't risk it. They dropped into the bushes just outside the clinic where TK carefully lowered Kari into Davis's arms so that they could both sink to the ground.

"I can't… breathe…" Davis coughed, trying to catch his breath with some difficulty as he held Kari against him.

TK wasn't much better as he tried swallowing in gulp after gulp of air. "I, uh… I'm gonna check… see if… if it's safe…"

He lifted his pants leg to pull the knife out of the sheath. Even his fingers trembled from the exertion. He stayed kneeling in the bushes for a moment longer, his head dropped in his hands, trying to force himself to take slow, steady breaths. Finally, the burning in his chest slowly started to dissipate, and he nodded at Davis before moving to get to his feet. His legs felt like jello beneath him, but he forced himself to remain standing.

"Wait…" Davis said, grabbing TK's wrist weakly. "Just… just in case there's a crazed murderer in there…" He took a breath. "I'm sorry."

TK's gaze softened, and he nodded. "Me too."

As quietly as he could on shaky legs, TK slowly walked the perimeter of the small building. It actually looked more like a shabby house than a clinic, and a lone chicken roamed aimlessly in the front yard. He peered through each of the windows, looking for any signs of life, as he held his knife in front of him protectively. He knew the little thing actually wouldn't be that much use against most of the weapons he had seen so far, but reminded of the situation at hand, TK knew that not all of his shaking was from exhaustion as he finally got up the courage to push open the clinic door.

Empty.

Feeling a rush of excitement and relief that something was finally going right, TK ran back up the stoop. "Davis! C'mon!" he said.

A moment later, TK was clearing off a dusty bench and Davis was gently laying Kari out before the two boys began a frantic search through all of the cabinets. For several minutes, the only sounds throughout the clinic was the opening and closing of drawers, the shaking and opening of bottles, and quiet curses under their breath every time they came up empty.

"I found something!" Davis said.

He threw the bottle at TK who caught it easily and quickly read the label. He turned the bottle over in his hands and frowned.

"It's expired," he said.

"So?" Davis asked, already moving to get Kari a glass of water to take the medicine with. "Does medicine actually go bad?"

TK shrugged. "I'm not sure. I think it loses its potency."

For a moment, the two boys simply stared at each other before moving to Kari's side. This was the only thing they had. They couldn't exactly afford not to give it a try. TK shook two pills out of the bottle before lightly patting Kari's cheek to rouse her from her sleep. She moaned slightly and stared up blurrily at the two boys hovering worriedly over her.

"We got you some medicine," TK said softly, dropping the pills into her hand. "You need to take it, okay?"

She gave a small nod and put the pills into her mouth before taking the glass of water from Davis to swallow them. Kari laid back down as she passed out again. TK looked up at Davis with a worried look. All they could do now was wait.

x X x

"We're in!" Izzy shouted, jumping to his feet.

Everybody in the room jumped. They had been watching the big screen with rapt attention ever since Kari had collapsed. Tai, in particular, had scarcely breathed as he waited to see if his sister would be okay. Izzy looked around sheepishly, realizing that now was probably not the best time to get excited, but a moment later, Tai leapt to his feet as well.

"Wait, you're in? Like… you're _in_?" Tai asked, trying to make sure he understood.

Izzy smiled slightly and stepped away from his small monitor to show the PASSWORD ACCEPTED message that was flashing on his screen. He had finally managed to get into Battle Royale's system. It had taken many hours and a lot longer than he would have liked, but this was a huge breakthrough after nearly a full day of getting close to nothing done after hitting roadblock after roadblock.

"That's great, Izzy!" Mimi cheered.

Matt joined the computer genius at his computer. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get them out of there!"

Izzy slowly sunk back into his chair. "I'm in. That doesn't mean I can get them out yet."

"But you just said—!" Tai started, angrily.

"And I _am_," he protested, "but it's not that simple. First, I have to let the computer store it, which is what it's doing now. The system, I suspect will try to boot me out every couple of minutes, and if my computer has the information memorized, I'll be able to jump right back in. I also want to give it this time so that I can know if they see me in their system or not. If not, then I'll have the time I need to try to figure out exactly what's happening here. I don't want to make any changes that will unnecessarily announce my presence in their system until the move that I make _is_ to get them out of there. This way, they'll have less of a chance of catching me before I finish, and I have more of a chance of saving them."

Tai and Matt didn't seem to understand anything that just came out of his mouth. Ken stood from the sofa and stared at the two older men with a slightly grim expression.

"In other words, Izzy only has one shot to score the winning goal. He needs to study the other team's playbook before he can go for that shot or else the game will be over before it even begins."

x X x

Davis found a case of dried brown rice in the pantry of the clinic. He reached in to sift his (now clean, thanks to the sink) hand through the rice, checking out the texture and if it was still any good, before shrugging and carrying the entire thing back into the kitchen. He paused as he saw TK still seated next to Kari, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin on his hands, as he watched her, waiting for some sign that the medicine was working. He was pretty sure the blonde hadn't moved since Kari had passed back out almost an hour ago.

Not that he could blame him. He was worried, too. But it was hard not to feel such a petty emotion like _jealousy_ when he saw that picture, no matter how stupid he knew it was. He shook his head at himself before moving to drop the cast iron pan he found in one of the cabinets on the stove. Two cups of rice, four cups of canned chicken stock that he'd also found in the pantry, a little bit of salt, bring to a boil…

It was easier to focus on cooking than the situation at hand, but he knew he couldn't fool himself forever. He turned the heat down to low and covered the pot with a lid. Davis hesitated for a moment before finally forcing himself to join TK in the other room with Kari. The blonde was checking her forehead again, pressing his palm to her clammy skin, but this time he smiled. Hearing footsteps, TK turned and let out a relieved sigh.

"Her fever's breaking. Looks like the expired drugs work after all."

Davis mimicked his sigh and moved to sit on the floor. "Thank God…"

TK sat next to him and leaned back against the wall exhaustedly. His eyes were shut as he sat there, and his breath started to even out as he finally started to relax. Davis looked over at him for a moment before nudging him in the side.

"Don't fall asleep," he teased.

TK turned a tired blue-eyed glare onto him. "You're a jerk."

Davis just grinned before it faltered with the reminder of their argument earlier. "Yeah, I am… I meant what I said earlier. I am sorry."

"I know," TK said softly. "Me too."

"It's just," he sighed, trying to find the words, "I have to believe that there's a way off this island for all of us. I have to. I don't know what I'd do if there wasn't…"

TK gave him a patient smile. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, Davis."

"Yes, I do," he protested. "Because… Because if I'm wrong, and there can only be one winner…"

"Kari wins."

Davis blinked as TK said exactly what he had been trying to get out. He nodded slowly. "Yeah…"

"Don't worry," TK said with a grim but determined expression. "We're on the same page."

"I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Me too…"

x X x

Across the island outside the very warehouse that had originally been the digidestined's destination were the three basketball stars. Boy number 9, Gai Kudo, was in the driver seat of a truck as he steered it carefully toward the warehouse's open double doors, but the truck wasn't on. Instead, it was being propelled forward by boy number 6, Fumiki "Mickey" Ito, and boy number 2, Tenchi Arai, who were pushing the bed of the truck with all of their strength. All of the boys were no worse for the wear except for Tenchi, who had tissues stuck between his collar and neck.

"C'mon, we're almost there," Gai said encouragingly.

"That's… easy… for you to say," Mickey ground out through clenched teeth.

Tenchi groaned and then dropped his hands. "This is ridiculous! Gai, are you _sure_ the brake's off?"

"Of course it's off—! Oh…"

Mickey's eyes widened and he turned to Tenchi with an annoyed glare. "I'm going to kill him." And then he winced. "Wrong choice of words. I'm going… to steal his record collection when we get back. Remind me."

Tenchi snorted lightly. "I'll do that."

The sudden rustling of leaves from the tree line sent Mickey and Tenchi ducking behind the truck in a flash. Gai leapt across the truck's cabin and quietly exited out the passenger side to sit on the ground with the other two boys. They shot each other alarmed looks as Tenchi reached into his pocket to pull out a stun gun, the only usable weapon the boys had.

"Maybe it was a squirrel?" Gai mouthed, hopeful.

Tenchi lowered himself down onto his stomach and peered out under the truck to see a pair of feet standing there. He shot Mickey and Gai a distressed look as he shook his head in the negative. Not a squirrel.

"Who is it?" Mickey asked, making nearly no sound as he did.

Again, the co-captain could only shake his head. He couldn't tell from the shoes who was standing there. It could have just as easily been one of their classmates as it was one of the transfer students. He didn't exactly pay attention to what everybody was wearing.

"Maybe it's TK?" Gai added, trying not to panic.

Before Tenchi could come up with a response, the person finally spoke, "Tenchi? Guys?"

Mickey popped up before the other two could stop him. "Koreya?" he asked as he stepped around the truck. "How'd you find us?"

Boy number 7, Koreya Kikuchi, smiled softly before holding up the GPS tracker in his hand. "This is my weapon."

Tenchi and Gai, realizing that Mickey seemed to be quite friendly with the guy, slowly moved out from their hiding spot. Gai blinked as he saw the GPS tracker in his hand. He grinned.

"A sensor?" he said, moving to take a look. "That's awesome."

Koreya nodded in agreement. "Only shows me who's around, though. Not the whole island. Seems to be connected to the collars we're all wearing."

Tenchi frowned. "So, you don't know where we are."

Koreya shook his head. "We could be off the coast of Japan, or we could be thousands of miles away. I have no idea."

"Great," Mickey said, throwing his arms up.

"Have you seen TK?" Gai asked.

"No," Koreya admitted. "But I only see everybody's number. Which one is he?"

Tenchi shook his head. "We don't know. He was after all of us. We waited at first, but then that transfer student came running out of the building and headed straight for us, so we took off. We haven't seen him since."

"Have any of you seen Raina or Iria?" Koreya asked.

"Raina was right before me," Tenchi offered, "but she was long gone by the time I got outside."

"Iria was still in the room when I left," Gai said. "And I haven't seen her."

Koreya nodded. "Alright, well, I'm off then."

Mickey looked at him, alarmed. "Already?"

"Koreya, stay with us," Tenchi offered. "There may be a way off this island without all of us having to die. You can help!"

"As soon as I find them, I'll be back," Koreya promised, "but I have to find them first."

Seeing that he was serious, Tenchi sighed. "Alright… We'll be here as long as this doesn't become a danger zone."

"If you run into TK, you'll tell him where we are?" Gai asked.

Koreya smiled lightly. "Of course."

The three boys watched Koreya walk off and disappear through the trees once more. Mickey shook his head sadly.

"He always was a loner," he said.

"How do you know him so well?" Gai asked, moving to get back into the truck.

"We live in the same building," Mickey explained.

"Ready?" Tenchi asked. "Push!"

Mickey and Tenchi pushed the truck into the warehouse. It went a whole lot smoother this time without the emergency brake on, and Gai guided the truck to a nice location before dropping it into park. The boys sighed in relief at their handiwork before Mickey ran back to shut the warehouse doors.

"So… Koreya…" Gai said, unable to let it go. "Why does he have to find Raina and Iria?"

"Yeah," Tenchi added, "I thought he was into Raina?"

Mickey shrugged. "I just said that we lived in the same building, not that we were best friends."

Tenchi moved to sit down at their makeshift table made up of metal crates before he moved to pull at the tissue beneath his collar. It was starting to get uncomfortably damp from sweat. He grimaced as he ran his fingers over the sensitive skin. He could feel the slight swelling just beneath the collar, and even the slightest touches were causing the inflamed area to cry out to be scratched. It was just his luck that these collars had to be made out of partly nickel, the exact metal that he was allergic too. If this continued much longer, he was going to end up with blisters. Not exactly a pleasant thought.

"How's your neck?" Gai asked as he watched his friend with a worried expression.

"As well as can be expected," Tenchi grimaced. He grabbed the collar and pulled on it slightly as he stared down his nose as it. "I wish we could get these damn things off… Wait a minute…"

Mickey blinked. "What? What is it?"

Tenchi brought a finger up to his lips as he hissed, "Shh!" before gesturing them over. He reached into his red backpack and pulled out his day planner and wrote across the pages, not caring that he was ruining the pages for the dates he was writing across.

"_They're listening_," he wrote. "_There's a microphone in the collar._"

"No kidding!" Gai said aloud before getting smacked on either side by Mickey and Tenchi. He winced. "Sorry…"

Tenchi rolled his eyes and continued to write, "_Your mission is to find the following: 1. 10 meters of wire, 2. Tools (screwdriver, wrench, and whatever else you can find), 3. Rubber gloves._" He ripped the page out of the planner and handed it to Mickey. "Got it?"

Gai gave the paper a strange look. "What is this for?"

The co-captain shook his head. "Don't ask questions. Go see what you can find."

Mickey nodded as he folded up the page and put it into his back pocket. "What about you? What are you going to do?"

Tenchi reached into his backpack again and pulled out his camera. "I'm going to go for a little sightseeing."

x X x

Girl number 1, Raina Arakaki, jogged up the trail that led straight to her chosen hideout. It was a daily routine of hers, and though some people might find it a bit obsessive of her to keep it up, she couldn't stop training now. Her sights had been on the Olympics since she was eight, and she couldn't stop thinking about that dream right now, no matter how unlikely it was that she was going to make it out of this.

She was wearing a bright yellow tracksuit as she jogged up to the temple that she had made her sanctuary over the past couple of hours. Her bags were waiting for her on the stoop, and she sat down with a bit of a sigh. She could pretend all she wanted; she knew that she wasn't at home training in the park. After all, a very important part of the training regime was missing.

_Koreya…_

Raina could just imagine him on his bike as he carried the stopwatch that was timing her runs. Every morning, every afternoon, no matter the time, he had always been there for her, ever since they had been kids. She pulled a towel and a bottle of water out of her bag distractedly. She could not help but wonder where he was now… Raina jumped to her feet as she heard footsteps behind her and dropped into a defensive stance. Boy number 14, Morio Saito, came out cautiously from behind the temple. The crossbow that he had gotten from Masaki Abe in the very first hour of the game was pointed threateningly at her.

But then he realized who he was seeing, and he started to lower the crossbow. "Raina?"

She, however, did not relax. "Go away, Morio. I don't want to talk to you."

As if not hearing a word she just said, he started to walk closer. "Look at you… Practicing even when we might all be dead tomorrow."

"I mean it, Morio! _Go away!_" she snapped.

"C'mon, Raina," he begged, slowly approaching her. "I just want to talk. I mean, they all gossiped about us!"

"Because of _your_ lies," Raina pointed out. "We kissed in a game of Truth or Dare, and you lied to everyone saying that we slept together."

Morio shrugged innocently. "But I became a legend with the boys."

Raina's chocolate brown eyes narrowed in disgust. "You're pathetic!"

"C'mon, Raina, you know you liked the idea of it," he said in a weak attempt to sound seductive as he finally reached her. "Just stay with me here."

He reached out to touch her shoulder, and she leapt back away from him with a cry of disgust. She glared at him angrily.

"Don't touch me! And I wouldn't stay with you, even if you paid me," she spat out.

"But, Raina… I'm in love with you… For real!"

His lack of sincerity was not lost on the track star who simply crossed her arms over her chest unimpressed. Morio gave a frustrated sound, obviously getting fed up in his inability to get her to just give him a chance. And then a thought dawned on him.

"Hey… you're a virgin, right?" he asked.

Raina went red from both anger and embarrassment. "How dare you—! That is none of your business, and you better stop talking right now!"

A thoughtful look crossed Morio's face. "So, Koreya wasn't man enough to do it with you, after all…"

She balled her hands into fists. "You leave Koreya out of this!"

Morio stepped in close once more. "C'mon, Raina… We're going to die anyway. Don't you want to do it just _once_ before you die?"

Raina reached up and slapped him hard across the face. He cried out and stumbled backwards as he clutched his cheek.

"With you?" she spat. "I'd rather be a nun!" She moved toward her bags, ready to gather them up and storm off. She would find another safe haven instead of sticking around here with that pervert.

Morio growled in his throat and raised the crossbow to point at her. "I should have told you… I've decided to play this game for real."

She shot him a dangerous look of her own. "And I've decided that if I'm going out, I'm going out _my_ way. Nobody else is going to decide that for me. So, you better put that thing down, or I'm going to assume you're deadly, and I'll make you regret ever seeing my face!"

"I've already killed," Morio said, trying to sound threatening. "I'll do it again. And before I do, maybe I'll just take what I want…" His eyes traveled up and down her body in a creepy manner.

Raina narrowed her eyes. "I'd like to see you try."

Angry and insulted, Morio suddenly fired the crossbow. The bolt flew through the air and just barely missed Raina's head by mere inches. Startled, Raina reached into her bag and pulled out her weapon, a switchblade that she flicked open.

"Do that again, and I'll kill you!" she screamed.

"Maybe I'll shoot you in the leg!" he snapped. "Make it so that you can't run from me!"

He grabbed another arrow and moved to reload, but Raina was already running off. He cursed under his breath and followed as he saw her duck behind a tree. Getting the arrow in place, he quietly tried to round the tree so that he could surprise her, but Raina was waiting for him. Without any warning, she kicked the crossbow clean out of his hands, and she moved to stab him in the gut with the blade. He jumped out of the way just in the nick of time before grabbing her wrist and pinning her to the tree. The circulation cut off, her fingers eventually went limp, and the blade hit the forest floor.

Morio chuckled breathlessly. "I got you."

But he celebrated too quickly. Raina abruptly kneed him in the groin, causing him to double over and let her go, before she reached up and grabbed his collar. She pulled, _hard_, enough where the plastic started to splinter. It started to beep, loud and fast. His eyes widened.

"No… No! Raina!"

And then it exploded. Part of his neck was blown out, showering her with the blood spray, before his body fell forward, dead. She stood there, a little shocked at what she had just done, when she suddenly realized that Morio hadn't been the only person standing there. Just a few meters behind Morio's now dead body was Ami Hidaka, crouched in the bushes, as she watched the scene before her. Ami grinned maliciously as she raised the gun in her hand, and Raina's eyes widened. Then, Raina did what she did best: she ran.

Ami chased after her, firing shot after shot, until she just couldn't keep up with the track star's athletic form anymore.

BOY NUMBER 14: MORIO SAITO, DEAD.

22 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

Koreya Kikuchi ran toward the elusive _G1_ on his GPS tracker. He had finally caught up with Raina, and he wasn't going to let her out of his sight this time, even though he knew that if she wanted to outrun him, she could without even trying. Even so, right now, she was sitting in one spot, and he had to try to get her. His feet pounded against the ground as he headed toward the bridge that crossed over a valley when he suddenly froze.

Raina laid there, her yellow tracksuit covered in blood. He hoped for a moment that the blood was someone else's, but the blood pool forming around her told him everything he needed to know.

"_No!_" he shouted.

He ran to her side before dropping down next to her. She was still breathing, but her breaths were quick and shallow. She was just barely conscious as she turned her head slightly at the sound. She smiled wistfully up at him.

"Koreya…"

Koreya pulled off his jacket and moved to press it against the gunshot wounds on her chest and stomach. Blood was coming from everywhere, though, and his hands were shaking as he tried to do something to stop it.

"Please don't die, Raina! Just hang on!"

For what, he wasn't sure, but he didn't want her to go. Raina barely heard him. She reached up weakly to touch his face with her bloody fingertips.

"God… If this is a bad joke, please just stop it…" she whispered.

Koreya gave a watery smile. "It's really me, Raina," he said. "I'm here." He sniffled. "Who did this to you?"

"Ami," she answered, a smile on her face now that she knew she wasn't hallucinating. "You have to watch out for her, Koreya… She's dangerous…"

He let out a sob. "I'm so sorry…"

"For what?"

"I tried to find you," he choked out. "Maybe if I had gotten here quicker or if I had talked to you in the classroom and told you to wait for me, none of this would have happened. I promised that I would protect you, and I failed."

Raina gave a watery smile as she cupped the side of his face. "You didn't fail me," she promised. "You're here now, aren't you?"

She struggled to sit up, and Koreya moved to help her, letting her rest her back against his chest as he held her dying form in his arms. She rested her head back against his shoulder tiredly and gave a small sigh of contentment.

"Are you in love with someone?" she whispered.

Koreya hesitated for a moment. "Yeah…"

"Not me." It wasn't a question.

He shook his head anyway. "I'm sorry…"

Raina smiled. "It's okay… Will you stay with me, just like this, and pretend? It won't be long…"

Koreya's body shook as he started to cry, unable to keep it in. She knew that he was crying into her hair, but everything was so fuzzy, she couldn't even feel his tears against her scalp. She stared up toward the setting sun sadly. She would be missing out on so much life left to live that she would never get to experience. But maybe, right now, she could pretend she had experienced just one little piece of it. She turned her head to look up into his face.

"Koreya…" She swallowed thickly. "I love you."

"I know," he sobbed. He pressed his forehead to hers before whispering, "I love you, too."

It was a lie, and they both knew it, but it felt so good for her to hear it in that moment. She leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Thank you…"

And then Raina was gone. All Koreya could do was cry.

GIRL NUMBER 1: RAINA ARAKAKI, DEAD.

21 PLAYERS TO GO.

* * *

Next Chapter: Goodnight and Goodbye


	8. Goodnight and Goodbye

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. That's just how the cookie crumbles!

**Author's Note**: You guys are so sweet. You really brighten my day. Sometimes, I think I have the best readers, haha. This chapter is the longest of the bunch and a lot of stuff happens here. I hope you all enjoy it. It was definitely a hard one to write for me, for more than one reason, but I think it came out really well. Lots of love from me to all of you! And I hope you...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Eight: Goodnight and Goodbye**

The sunset falling over the island was punctuated with the sound of classical music emitting from the speakers overhead. As the music faded, it was replaced with the voice of island's inhabitants' principle, Mr Higa. Girl number 17, Iria Sugiyama, sat crouched in her hiding spot. She hadn't stopped shaking since she left the school 18 hours ago. She just wanted to go home. But for right now, she would take just staying out sight, which was why she was crouched up on the second landing of an old dojo.

"_I'm very disappointed,_" Mr Higa said in a dissatisfied drawl.

Iria stared up at the roof fearfully, as if expecting to be able to see Mr Higa's face there. She could see just the slightest hints of sunlight through the holes in the roof, and with every passing second, it was growing dimmer. She clutched her weapon, a .9 mm pistol, close to her chest. She didn't want to hurt anyone, but she didn't want to die either.

"_It's six o'clock, and I have a list of only three goners here! Not good… not good at all…_"

x X x

Girl number 8, Hina Kato, and girl number 2, Kimi Fujiwara, ducked into a nearby cave before flicking on their flashlights. They had to make changes to their maps for the danger zones, so they were moving to already pull out their pens to do just that.

"_I will have to punish you, but I will start with a list of the dead… Girl number 9, Naeko Maeda. Boy number 14, Morio Saito. Girl number 1, Raina Arakaki._"

"Raina!" Hina gasped sadly.

Kimi nodded in sadness. They knew that Raina would not play the game, but they had hoped that she would at least be able to find somewhere to hide.

x X x

"Now, for your punishment," Mr Higa said into the microphone as he looked out the window, taking in the view of the setting sun along the horizon. "I will be adding more danger zones. There will be a new one every hour, so you better get them straight!" He paused to give the students time to get their maps and pens out for any stragglers before he began, "At 7PM, D-1. From 8PM, C-4. From 9PM, I-3. From 10PM, B-10. And finally, at 11PM, G-2. Now, get to work, and make me proud!"

He put down the microphone and walked over to the screens. There were still too many clusters for his liking. Clusters meant loyalties, and loyalties meant that people weren't going to turn on each other just because he kept prodding. Then again, maybe they would start changing their tune as soon as time started getting short. He smiled a bit. Yes, that was probably what would happen.

"Looks like Shingo has found himself another target," Lieutenant Kuroi said with a slight smile.

Mr Higa scanned the screen until he found _B8_ (Shingo) following the trail of _B17_. From the speed they were moving, he guessed that they were probably running. Or more like _B17_ was being chased by Shingo. Mr Higa knew that he wouldn't be getting away. He trailed his eyes down the map, and raised an interested eyebrow.

"If they keep going in that direction, they're going to run into this cluster," he pointed out, gesturing to three dots together on the map. "Who are they?"

One of the soldiers that were keeping track of everybody's profile compared the numbers with the names before answering, "Davis Motomiya, Takeru Takaishi, and Kari Kamiya."

"Those three always did stick together," Mr Higa muttered. He shrugged. "Looks like they're indoors, though. They may not even be seen after all. Assuming that B17 lives long enough to lead him down there."

Lieutenant Kuroi just smirked. "If they get there, he'll see them. Trust me."

x X x

"Hey, welcome back," TK said gently.

Kari smiled groggily and moved to sit up with his help. She sat on the edge of the bench for a moment, getting her bearings straight, before realizing that she actually felt quite good. She looked around, taking in the sight of the clinic, and her eyes landed on the pill bottles sitting nearby. She didn't even remember taking any pills, but she knew that she must have. She wouldn't be feeling so much better so quickly if she hadn't. The only light in the clinic was the last few inches of sunlight from the sunset outside and the candles sitting on the table.

"How are you feeling?" he continued.

"Better," Kari said honestly. "Pretty much back to normal."

"And just in time," Davis said with a grin as he placed two bowls onto the table before going back for a third. "Dinner's ready."

"You cooked?" Kari asked, surprised.

"Yeah, all he's missing is a little pink apron," TK teased as he moved to sit at the table.

Davis sent him a glare. "Laugh it up, TS, but everybody knows that women love a guy who can cook." He grinned over at the only girl in the clinic. "Right, Kari?"

"Mm," Kari said noncommittally, an amused smile on her lips.

The gogglehead grinned at TK. "That's a yes."

TK rolled his eyes. "Sure."

Kari grabbed her porcelain spoon and dipped it into the rice soup to begin eating. As soon as she had the first bite, she looked over at Davis surprised. Despite obviously not having much of a selection to choose from, it actually still managed to taste pretty good. Even TK adopted an impressed expression as he tasted it.

"This is pretty good, Davis," he said.

Davis grinned. "You should taste what I can do with noodles and fresh ingredients."

"We will," Kari said quietly. "When we get back."

The boys nodded solemnly as they were brought back to the situation at hand. They weren't just three friends sharing a meal. So much more was going on, and it was so tempting to just want to forget about all of it as they teased each other and made plans for a future they might never see. They continued eating in silence for several more minutes before Davis got up to take their empty bowls back to the kitchen.

"Thanks, Davis," Kari said.

TK nodded in agreement.

Davis adopted a lighthearted smile. "No sweat. Oh, and guess what else I found back here?"

He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a caramel-colored bottle. TK's eyes widened in recognized, but Kari had to squint through the candlelight to read the label before she realized what it was. She sighed and shook her head, both amused and exasperated at the same time. The bottle was dusty but in relatively good shape, leaving the Yamazaki Single Malt Whisky label in quite good condition.

"Davis…"

"C'mon!" he protested, grabbing three glasses and bringing them over to the table before placing one in front of each of them. "One drink. We might never get the chance again."

He poured the amber liquid into each of the glasses, but TK and Kari didn't make a move to grab their glass. He looked between the two of them before shrugging and grabbing his own before taking a sip. He made a bit of a face, but he didn't put it down. He simply took another sip after that. TK put his head down on the table and stared at the glass in front of him. Kari watched him sadly.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

TK smiled sadly. "Patamon," he admitted, looking up at her. "He wanted to go with us to Kyoto, but I was afraid he'd end up stuffed inside my backpack too often to really get any fun out of it."

"_Aw, TK, I want to go!" Patamon said as he flapped his wings excitedly in front of his partner. _

_They were standing in front of Primary Village, the hang out for the digimon most of the time nowadays. TK reached forward and affectionately scratched under his partner's ear. _

"_Sorry, Pata'. There are almost 40 other kids going on this trip. You'd have to stay hidden the entire time! That wouldn't be very fun," he pointed out. _

_Patamon pouted. "I never get to go anywhere fun." _

_TK raised an eyebrow. "That is so not true."_

"_Well… not in the _Real_ World anyway," he amended. _

"_Look," TK said, on the verge of laughing at his friend's pouting face, "Matt's band is going on tour this summer, and he already told me that I could go. Why don't you come with me? You'll be able to see _all_ of Japan, including Kyoto."_

"_Really?" Patamon gasped. _

"_I promise."_

Kari matched his expression, a sad frown on her own face. "Gatomon didn't mind getting left behind," she said softly, "but she did tell me to be careful, almost like… she had known…"

"I just can't stop thinking… maybe none of this would have happened if I'd taken him along," TK said.

Davis shook his head. "There's nothing Patamon could do… Not with these things around our necks, remember?"

TK nodded. "I know… I just can't stop thinking it anyway."

"DemiVeemon wanted to come, too," Davis said. "Really badly."

"_Davis!" Jun shrieked through the house. "Get your butt out here right now or you're going to be late!" _

_The gogglehead grumbled to himself as he hurried around the room, trying to find a pair of clean socks. Dirty, dirty, _really_ dirty… Did he really not have a single pair of clean socks in his entire room? Not that it would be that much of a shock. He wasn't sure when he had last done laundry actually was… _

_Finally finding a pair that appeared clean, he pulled them and his shoes on lightning quick before snatching up his bag. Something wiggled from within, and he nearly leapt out of his skin. Dropping the bag back to the floor, Davis ripped it open to find DemiVeemon sitting on top of his clothes, giggling into his paws, until he realized he had been caught. Then, he grinned widely. _

"_Surprise! Are we in Kyoto yet?" _

_Davis groaned. "No! We're still in Odaiba. What are you doing here?" _

"_I'm coming with you, duh!" he said. "But it was supposed to be a surprise… Oh well!" _

"_DemiVeemon!" Davis dropped his head into his hands. "I thought I sent you to the Digital World to play with the digimon babies while I was gone!" _

"_You did…" he admitted, "but I knew you wouldn't be able to have any fun without me, so here I am!" _

_Davis picked his partner up by the scruff of his neck and poked him in the stomach with his free hand, causing the blue digimon to giggle innocently. "You!" he growled before sighing, deciding he actually wasn't that upset. "I'd really like to take you, DemiVeemon… but I can't. Somebody could see you!" _

"_I can be a stuffed animal. See, watch!" _

_He went very still and stiff in his hands suddenly. Until the corner of his lips started to twitch. Davis shook his head sadly at his partner. _

"_Ignoring the fact that you would make a terrible stuffed animal," Davis teased, "it would also be very unmanly for me to carry you around as one. Do you really want to spend the next three days living out of my backpack?" _

"_Not really," DemiVeemon said before smiling up at his partner. "But I don't mind! As long as we're together, that's all I care about, Davish!" _

_Davis's expression softened. "DemiVeemon…" He shook his head. "Sorry, buddy. But, hey, when I get back, we'll hang out. Just you and me. Alright?" _

_DemiVeemon sighed. "Alright." _

"_Now, back to the Digital World with you!"_

TK looked over at Kari. "Do you really think that they know that something's wrong?"

Kari shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know… I think they probably have an idea…"

"Tai probably told them," Davis pointed out. "I'm sure he knows by now."

"Maybe," TK agreed, "but he also might not have, because he knew there was nothing that they could do. Just like you said, Davis."

Davis stared down into his drink. "Yeah, maybe…"

TK sighed. "Okay, I'll have that drink now," he said, finally giving in. He dragged his glass closer to him before bringing the glass to his lips and knocking back the entire drink in one go. He dropped the glass back to the table and coughed into his hand, pushing the empty glass away from him as he did. "That was kind of awful."

Davis just laughed. "It's not that bad. Alright, Kari, your turn!"

Kari sighed. "Fine." She picked up her glass and took a small sip. She made a face and put it down, shaking her head. "Yeah, that's pretty bad."

TK dragged his bag over to him and pulled out a bottle of water to rinse out the taste of his mouth. Davis snickered as he watched him, finding his overreaction to be quite humorous as his friend downed nearly a quarter of his water bottle at once. The blue-eyed blonde sent him a glare over the water bottle that only caused him to laugh harder and Kari started to giggle as well. He capped his bottle and dropped it back into his bag before rolling his eyes and finally laughing too.

Davis studied the drink in his hand. "My mom is going to kill me. She's always saying, _Davis! No drinking until you're 20! Are you listening to me!?_"

"And she'll be even more upset because it was your idea," TK pointed out, laughter in his voice.

"I'll just tell her that Jun's been drinking since she was 13," Davis said with a grin. "And it won't even be a lie. She'll be so upset, she'll totally forget all about me."

Kari shook her head. "Oh, Davis."

"It will be payback for all the times she's told on me!" Davis protested.

"Actually, I doubt your mom will be mad," TK offered.

"You don't know my mom very well!"

TK shook his head. "Maybe not, but… I think she'll just be so happy you're back."

Davis let out a long breath. "I totally forgot about our parents," he admitted. "And Higa says that they were told… Man…"

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about it," Kari whispered. "Them or my brother."

"The reasons to keep going," TK added, quietly.

"The _reasons_," Davis corrected, shooting TK a look that Kari couldn't quite understand, "to find a way off of this island."

Kari gave him an interested look. "Do you have an idea?"

Davis adopted a thoughtful expression. "Well, our first problem are these collars, right?"

TK nodded.

"Mr Higa had a remote detonator to set off Nobu's," he continued, his voice wavering slightly on his late friend's name. "Maybe if we get rid of the detonator, they won't be able to set it off?"

"I doubt that's the only way to set them off, Davis," TK said slowly. "The video said that if we tried to remove them, they would explode. There's probably some sort of tamper-proof mechanism meant to go off if we try to undo it, even without the remote detonator."

Davis gave him an annoyed look for being so logical before sighing. "Okay… But maybe—"

An automatic weapon suddenly went off in the distance. All three of them jumped.

"The candles!" TK hissed.

Kari leaned forward and blew all three of them out before she hit the floor with the boys. They crawled over to the window, pressing their backs against the wall, as they stared at each other fearfully. Hopefully, whoever it was would just pass right by the clinic without coming any closer. Maybe they could just avoid a confrontation all together. After a moment, Davis finally gathered enough courage to lift up slightly, just enough to peer out the window.

"Who is it?" Kari whispered.

"It's the crazy guy," Davis murmured. "I can't tell who he's chasing, though."

TK took a deep breath before he moved to peek out of the window as well. He squinted through the darkness until he could see the flash of orange hair that Davis had spotted, the sight of Shingo carelessly running down the path toward the clinic. In front of him was someone riding on a bicycle, it looked like. It wasn't until the bike had turned in front of the clinic to pass it by did the moonlight (for the sun was completely set by this point) shine across the rider's face in just the right way. TK ducked back down.

"I think it's Chuugo," he said.

Davis's eyes widened as he heard the name. Chuugo was the goalie for the soccer team, and though he wasn't as close to him as he had been to Nobu, he still cared for the other boy. But he felt TK grabbing his arm, stopping him from jumping up, and he caught the look in his eyes. TK hated himself, but he was asking him to not to do it, not to try to help. He was asking him not to get himself killed. Davis averted his gaze to Kari who was looking at him with the same silent but pleading stare, and he settled back down, tears in his eyes. He knew, logically, there was nothing he could do, but that didn't make it any easier.

"Okay," he finally amended, his voice wavering slightly. "If we end up having to run, and we get separated, where should we meet up?"

He was looking at TK who knew the map best, and the basketball player quietly unfolded the map in his pocket. He scanned the page through squinted eyes, trying to read in the dark, before he pointed out a structure to the west of where they were.

"The shrine. Okay?"

TK looked between Kari and Davis to make sure they both understood before folding the map back up and placing it back in his pocket. Kari nodded to the front door, and Davis looked up to see it unlocked. Quietly, he reached up to slide the lock into place before he sat back down. All they could do was wait and hope not to be seen.

x X x

Boy number 17, Chuugo Suzuki, peddled his bike as fast as he could. Soccer was only a hobby to him. Biking? That had always been his passion, and he was good at it. The second he had stumbled across the bike, only two hours after the start of the game, he had held onto it for an occasion such as this. And he was doing a damn good job of speeding out of Shingo's range. He could hear the bullets whizzing by him, but machine guns weren't built for accuracy when in the rapid-fire assault mode, and for that, Chuugo was both thankful and lucky.

But he had been peddling the bike for almost an hour, and Shingo was just not getting tired. He seemed to have an insane amount of stamina as he kept up with him step-for-step. And by this point, Chuugo's thighs were starting to scream in pain. He skidded the bike as he turned a corner suddenly in front of a building and continued around it as he followed the path, but he knew that he couldn't keep running forever. Eventually, one of them was going to get tired, and he was starting to fear that it would be him.

Seeing a ditch up ahead, Chuugo made a quick decision. Another round of automatic gunfire chased after him, and he threw himself off of his bike into the ditch, tumbling and rolling into a stop on his stomach. He lied there, hoping to appear dead. Maybe if Shingo thought he'd gotten him, he would leave him alone. He heard Shingo's footfalls approaching his fallen form, and he forced himself to stop breathing. And then he felt Shingo suddenly grab onto the sword sheath on his back that was holding his katana.

He didn't fight him. He had no intention of playing this game; he didn't need the katana. Hearing Shingo walk away, Chuugo could not help the sigh of relief that fell past his lips as he allowed himself to breathe once more.

"That was a close one," he muttered to himself.

The sudden _schwing!_ of a sword being unsheathed sent his head shooting up in shock. Shingo was standing there, holding his katana, with a cruel smile on his face. Chuugo went pale.

"NO!" he screamed.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but he wasn't quick enough. Shingo jumped off of the ditch's embankment and brought the sword down right at his neck. Chuugo's body fell forward, lifeless, while his head rolled off further down the hill.

BOY NUMBER 17: CHUUGO SUZUKI, DEAD.

20 PLAYERS TO GO.

Shingo chuckled to himself as he sheathed his newly obtained bloody blade. He considered the bike for a moment before deciding to leave it. He was more mobile on his feet anyway. He was about to walk off when his eyes suddenly caught sight of the clinic. He saw the window curtains flutter slightly, and he smirked. He was just too lucky tonight.

x X x

TK's eyes widened as he saw a shadow appear over the curtain of the window, and a second later, the doorknob was rattling as someone tried to open it up. Kari whimpered fearfully, and Davis started to crawl away from the window. He gestured for the other two to follow, starting to try to quietly lead them out the back. Shakily, Kari crawled after him, and TK took a moment longer to break out of his fearful paralysis before he could follow their example. Everything went oddly silent as Shingo apparently gave up after finding the door locked. TK and Davis shared a confused glance, and Davis shot a nervous look in the direction of the backdoor.

Was it locked? Was that where he was going next?

The front window that they had just been crouched in front suddenly shattered. Kari screamed as glass broke out toward them and scattered across the floor around TK's knees and hands. The thing used to break the window came to a rolling stop next to TK, and his eyes widened as he realized what it was. A _grenade_.

"RUN!"

He pushed himself to his feet and leapt into the kitchen, ducking behind the counter, just as a loud concussion blast ripped through the clinic. Every window shattered. The bottle of whisky burst. And TK's hearing was _gone_. All he could hear was a high ringing, tearing through his eardrums. His hands were clamped over his ears. But it wasn't to block out the sound; it was try to contain the pain. Tears were in his eyes, and he forced himself to get a grip. He couldn't _hear_, but that didn't mean he couldn't think.

A meter in front of him, Davis was crouching beneath an overturned desk with his arms around Kari who was looking back at him. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn't hear a word that she was trying to say. He could see the wood of the desk splintering with small explosions as it was apparently hit with bullets. Shingo was showering the clinic with machine gun fire, but again, TK couldn't _hear_ it. He didn't even know it was happening. He probably would have stood like an idiot had he not looked over right then.

And then finally— _puh, puh, puh, puh_— The rapid fire of the machine gun started to come to him. It sounded like it was being fired underwater, and he had the strongest desire to try to knock nonexistent liquid out of his ears. He was starting to hear both Davis and Kari's voices now, but they were still mostly a foggy mess. He could tell they were worried, though. Probably because of his lack of response, but he'd have a better idea of how to respond if he knew what they were _saying_.

"TK, c'mon! Answer us!"

That was Davis, he realized, the words finally starting to make sense.

"TK, are you okay!?"

And that one was Kari, her voice loud and full of tears.

"I'm fine!" he shouted, but even his own voice sounded like it was coming from down the block. "I'm fine!"

The next hail of gunfire was impossibly loud again, breaking through the leftover noise shock, to make him realize how close the shots were hitting. He could hear the bullets whizzing by right over his head, and he ducked down lower out of fear. He looked back over at Davis and Kari who were covering their heads as the desk continued to splinter and explode from the abuse. He realized that eventually, one of those bullets was just going to go clean through after enough splintering. Or maybe Shingo would get bored before then and just walk into the clinic to kill them at point-blank range.

They were sitting ducks.

"Are you okay?" he shouted over at them.

"We're fine!" Davis reassured him.

The rapid assault paused once more, and TK realized that he must be reloading. He caught Davis's eye as a crazy and probably suicidal plan entered his head. Before he even said a word, Davis was already shaking his head. TK glanced around the clinic one last time for another solution, but his eyes only landed on the broken window to his right that led outside. This was Davis and Kari's only chance.

"Take care of her!"

TK jumped to his feet and ran straight for the window. Behind him, he could hear Davis and Kari shouting after him ("TK, don't be crazy!" "No, TK!"), but he didn't stop. He threw himself through the window, wincing as his hand was cut on the glass shards, and hit the ground as he fell out. He looked up at Shingo to catch his surprised expression, just making sure the crazed convict had seen him, before he took off running.

He had to lead him away from the clinic. It was the least he could for his friends.

x X x

"Davis, no! We can't leave him!"

Kari snatched her hand away from him, tears running down her cheeks and her gaze stuck on the window that TK just jumped out of. They'd both heard Shingo immediately taking off after him, and then Davis had grabbed her hand to try to lead her out the backdoor. But she couldn't go. Not without TK. They had sworn that they were going to stick together; they couldn't leave him behind. In the distance, they heard the automatic fire start up again.

"Oh my god!" she sobbed.

Davis grabbed one of the backpacks and threw it at her, making Kari catch it out of habit. Tears were in his eyes as well as he grabbed the other three and gave her an emotional but determined look.

"We can't _stay_, Kari," Davis choked out. "If TK manages to get away… or not…" He swallowed thickly. "Either way, Shingo will come right back here, and we don't have anything to defend ourselves with. And if TK _does_ get away, he won't look for us here. He'll go to the Shrine! Remember?"

"But…!"

Davis grabbed her wrist tightly so that she couldn't pull away again. "I know it's hard, but we've got to go. C'mon!"

Then, without waiting to hear her protest more, he pulled her toward the backdoor. He spared a quick moment to stare off in the direction that TK and Shingo had run off in, the two being long gone already, before he moved to run in the opposite direction and into the trees. Behind him, he could hear Kari crying and stumbling as they ran through the forest, but he just kept going. He had to.

x X x

Cody felt like he couldn't breathe. He was grabbing the back of Yolei's chair so tightly that he could hear the plastic cracking slightly under his fingers, but he didn't care and Yolei didn't comment on it. Their eyes were locked on the big screen as they watched TK running along a cliff's edge with that psycho Shingo following him. The picture quality wasn't very good, and it was almost too dark to see anything. But TK's bright blonde hair kept capturing the moonlight's beams at just the right angle every time Cody thought he might have lost him on the screen. Shingo's orange hair was making him quite visible as well, even without the constant muzzle flashes from the machine gun in his hand.

Davis, Kari, and TK's conversation right before everything happened had reminded him of the digimon who had no idea what was going on. They couldn't use Yolei's computer because she was working on creating some sort of virus; Izzy was unblinkingly working to sort out BR's website so that he could get them out of there; and Ken's computer was being used to store all of the "game" data such as the cameras and collar information so that Izzy's computer could work faster without all of that extra information bogging down his system. So, he had dug out Mr Izumi's old laptop with every intention of opening a digital gate to let them know right when the gunfire started.

The laptop lay forgotten on the table behind them now.

Every one of the present digidestined were staring in horror at the screen. Only Izzy and Ken were managing to look away. Izzy was trying hard to keep working, knowing that their lives depended on him figuring out this complex coding, and Ken was trying to hop from camera to camera to keep an eye on TK as he ran. Every time he ran out of view, Matt would shake the back of Ken's chair anxiously until they would finally see him again, still running, still alive.

Tai and Sora weren't even trying to calm down the nearly hysterical blonde. They just stood on either side of him, offering him whatever support they could. It didn't seem to be helping as another round of automatic fire chased TK further along the embankment.

"C'mon, TK," Cody muttered fearfully.

TK slipped on something that sent him crashing to his knees. Mimi squeaked in fear before TK bounced back up and kept going without missing a beat. Joe mumbled a hopeful mantra under his breath, and Cody found himself repeating the words in his head, trying to send the thoughts to his DNA Digivolving partner. He was more than the length of a soccer field in front of his pursuer. He could get away. He could.

_You can do it, TK. You can lose him. You're fine. Just keep going. Don't give up. You can do it…_

Shingo took a break from firing his weapon to reload, even while he continued to run after him. TK's movements were starting to get more sluggish with fatigue, but Shingo seemed to be at the top of his game despite the fact that he had just chased Chuugo down. He got the weapon ready and then started to fire in the direction of TK's back again. Just like the other rounds, most of the bullets missed, slamming into nearby trees or embedding into the dirt, until—

"AH!" TK's cry of pain sounded out from the microphone around his neck just before he hit the ground in the video feed.

"NO!" Matt screamed, tears running down his cheeks.

"Oh my god…" Cody whispered.

x X x

Boy number 7, Koreya Kikuchi, sat crouched behind a small wall of rocks out on the beach. He had been hearing automatic gunfire the past several minutes, and he figured the best idea was to just keep out of sight. He still had to find Iria. Maybe he could get to her before it was too late, like it had been for Raina. But as he watched his tracker, he saw _B18_ appear, quickly followed by _B8_. He wasn't sure who either of them were, but from his spot on the beach, he could see the two silhouettes running along the cliff edge.

And then they ran out from under the shadows of the trees, putting them out in the moonlight just enough for Koreya to realize who he was looking at. The male transfer student and TK. He gripped his tracker tightly in his hand as he heard TK cry out in pain as his head snapped back before he hit the ground, hard. He'd been hit.

Koreya held his breath as Shingo lowered his weapon with a smirk and started the walk toward TK at a slow, leisure pace. He wasn't in any hurry, and that just made it seem all the more terrifying.

x X x

"AH!"

In that brief moment as the pain exploded along his back, TK thought that Shingo had thrown another grenade at him. The impact was so intense and shocking that it knocked him right off his feet. And at the same time that this "grenade" was going off across his right shoulder, he felt like a second explosion had gone off simultaneously in his chest as it jack-hammered across his shoulder blade. A third, much smaller explosion, erupted against the side of his ribcage as he started to fall forward. Everything slowed down as he fell and crashed into the ground.

And strangely, despite the pain erupting in his chest, his hands flew up to protect his head out of some misguided instinct. The ground was shaking beneath him (no, it was him), and everything around him was growing hot. All he could see in front of him was grass and dirt, but even that started to blur and turn milky white in front of him. He could hear the crunching footsteps of Shingo's slow approach – _crunch, crunch, crunch_ – very distant, for TK was sure that he had been at least 100 meters in front of him, and he realized that this was probably the end.

The heat finally dissipated as it was replaced with a sudden shivering cold, and then the white turned to black and he finally, mercifully, passed out.

When TK came to next, he realized he hadn't been out for very long. The _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of Shingo's boots were coming to a stop next to him. He was here to finish the job and make sure that another number was going to be knocked off that board.

TK's entire body felt numb. It reminded him of a time when he had been seven years old and had spent all day playing out in the snow. When his mother was finally ready to drag him inside, he had innocently told her that he didn't want to go in! "Besides," he'd said, "I'm not even cold anymore." His mother's eyes had widened with worry before she picked him up and hauled him inside where he'd spent the next two hours in misery with his skin burning as his body tried to adjust to the warmth once more.

Now, being much older, TK knew what the numbness meant. He was in serious trouble. But at least his vision wasn't all milky anymore. He heard the clanking of metal and plastic above him, and he could practically feel the automatic weapon being pointed at the back of his head. For a moment, he considered just letting him do it; Shingo could remove him from this misery with just a single click of his weapon. But then he thought of Davis, Kari, Matt, everybody…

TK looked over his shoulder at him and kicked out, as hard as he could, at Shingo's shin. The transfer student cried out in both pain and anger as he hit the ground, and TK forced himself to his feet. His balanced wavered unsteadily, and he knew he wouldn't be running anywhere too far anytime soon. Shingo shot after him, the mercifully missing, and he dropped down in front of the first boulder he saw as his vision started to swim again. And that's when the pain returned. It took all of his self-control not to start screaming as the most excruciating pain he had ever known tore through his chest.

He clutched at his shoulder with his left hand, the warm blood coating and oozing between his fingers. His eyes were squeezed shut and his jaw were clamped shut, trying to keep the emotion and pain at bay, but that didn't stop the hot tears from leaking out. And then there was the sudden overwhelming nausea. TK brought his other hand up to his mouth, trying to keep bile down, but he immediately knew it was a losing battle as he rolled over onto his knees and vomited.

If Shingo hadn't seen where he had ducked to hide, there was no way he was not going to know now.

_I am so screwed. _

TK fell back against the boulder, the tears coming a little more freely as he just tried to catch his breath. The stars out here, he realized quite randomly, were beautiful. They never got to see the stars like this in Tokyo. Too many lights. If he had to go, maybe here wasn't so bad.

Shingo's shadow fell across TK's face as the wrathful man stood over him. TK stared up at him as the man reached for the katana on his back, deciding that killing this particular middle schooler with a gun would be too merciful. And right then, TK made a decision. He lifted his pants leg and grabbed the knife out of the sheath. He let out a feral yell and stabbed it through the front of Shingo's ankle and exited out the back of his heel. Shingo screamed, and the katana dropped from his hand and hit the ground, imbedding into the grass.

Through all of TK's pain, his fear, his doubts, TK pushed himself to his feet once more, ran to the edge of the cliff, and dived off.

If he had to go out now, so be it, but he would go out _his_ way.

_Bye, guys..._

And then he hit the water.

* * *

Next Chapter: Keep Holding On


	9. Keep Holding On

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. But the first fanfic I ever wrote was in 5th grade was based off of Digimon. It was for class. I got an A.

**Author's Note**: So, I know that I don't spend a lot of time describing the weapons that are used or exactly what their purpose is. I hope this doesn't confuse anyone, but I do try to throw in little tidbits here and there to keep the lesser gun-savvy of you up to par with everyone else. Also, this is kind of, I guess, a filler chapter. We see quite a few things happen, but only a handful of the information dropped it actually important. However, we do flesh out a few of my favorite OCs a little more, so I enjoyed writing it anyway. And I hope you also...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Keep Holding On**

The only reason Kari wasn't crying anymore was that exhaustion had won out. Eventually, she just couldn't cry and run anymore. She had to stop one of them, and she knew that she couldn't stop running without dragging Davis down. She knew Davis wasn't doing much better. Every so often, a sliver of moonlight would hit his face and highlight the silent tear tracks lining their way down his cheeks.

And then the classical music returned.

"_Wake up, everybody!_" Mr Higa said cheerfully. "_It's time for your midnight report._"

Davis and Kari looked up as they continued to run through the woods. The shrine was a lot further away than they had realized, so even now, hours later, they were still stumbling and running toward it with it nowhere in sight. They had failed to think about how exhausted Davis still was from carrying the luggage earlier, and how Kari's leg would start to act up again, or how their collective distress would slow them down as they stumbled their way blindly through the darkness.

"_Here is a list of your goners: Boy number 17, Chuugo Suzuki._"

He just stopped speaking as he paused, and Kari stopped with him, pulling Davis to a sudden halt. She felt her heart skip a beat as she waited with baited breath to see if he would say it.

"_A hugely disappointing total of one!_"

Kari grabbed Davis's arms as she stared up at him with wide eyes. "He didn't say TK's name!"

Davis smiled and let out a laugh. "That bastard… I should have known."

"C'mon! We have to go back!" Kari said.

She moved to start heading in the opposite direction, but Davis held onto her wrist tightly and stopped her. He shook his head.

"Kari, no. If he got away, he's headed to the shrine, too. Remember? We have to keep going," he said calmly.

"_And now for your danger zones, which are still every hour until you pick up the pace…_"

Davis cursed under his breath as he suddenly remembered the map. He scrambled to pull his out along with a pen. This was always TK's job before, and he had almost forgotten that he wasn't here to do it this time. Kari sighed heavily and leaned against a tree as she watched him work. She knew he was right, but she was just anxious to see the proof with her own eyes.

He was okay. He was _okay_.

x X x

Girl number 6, Ami Hidaka, sat with her back against a cliff wall, her flashlight in her mouth and pointed towards the map as she began to make a note of the danger zones that were going to be listed. She could not step into one of those now that she was so close to winning the game. And she was going to win. She was going to make sure of that.

"_Starting at 1AM, G-7. From 2AM, A-6. From 3AM, B-1. From 4AM, H-12. From 5AM, C-6._"

Her areas marked, Ami stood back up. She adjusted the crossbow on her shoulder that she had pulled off of Morio's body and held her map in front of her to double check on the area that she was heading to before nodding to herself. The zone, along with the path to it, was clear. Perfect.

"_Congratulations to those of you who are left! You're through your first 24 hours now. Only 48 hours left! Get to killing._"

x X x

Kimi Fujiwara was running away from the arrows that had been flying after her. She was trying very hard not to cry. The image of her best friend, Hina Kato, with an arrow through the back of her head and coming out of mouth just would not leave her mind. She had left her there to die alone, but fear had just taken over. And now, she was running.

She had not seen her attacker, but she had a feeling that it was probably one of the transfer students. She did not care who it was, though. All she knew was that she had to keep running. She just had to keep away from them, all of them, even her own classmates now that Hina was dead. As she ran through the woods, she ran straight into the chest of a taller male.

"Oh!" Kimi trembled as she fell on top of the person, unable to stop her momentum. "I'm so sor—"

She never got the chance to finish her sentence as she felt a knife stab through her gut. Her eyes grew wide as she finally looked at who she had run into. Shingo Kobayashi, the male transfer student. And it was TK's knife that was in her gut at the moment, though she had no way of knowing that. Shingo pushed the girl off of him, ripping the blade out as he went, and immediately sent the poor girl into shock.

Shingo wiped the bloody blade on his pants as he watched the girl writhe there in pain, trying to gasp for breath. She would be dead in minutes. And he would be long gone. He grabbed onto a nearby tree and pulled himself up. That blonde boy that had dared to injure him had ripped right through his Achilles heel. His right foot was completely useless now, but he was not going to let one little injury beat him.

He was not going to let one _pathetic_ _child_ beat him.

Grabbing up his walking stick that he had dropped when the girl had run into him, he leaned on it heavily as he continued on. He had a little revenge to get.

GIRL NUMBER 8: HINA KATO, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 2: KIMI FUJIWARA, DEAD.

18 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

Gai Kudo waddled through the warehouse doors as he lugged the heavy toolbox in with him. Fumiki "Mickey" Ito waited until he was completely through before he quickly shut the doors behind him, blocking them from public view. Not that anyone probably would have been able to see them here anyway. It was far too dark out right now. The only source of light was a candle on the table that illuminated the face of Tenchi Arai as he looked up with a grin. Tissue paper was once again stuffed between his neck and the collar.

"Good, you're back!" Tenchi sighed, getting to his feet. "I was starting to get worried."

The toolbox made a loud _crash_ as Gai dropped it next to his friend's feet. He rested his hands on his knees and took several deep breaths as he turned a slight glare onto the co-captain.

"That box… is deceptively heavy…"

Tenchi raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Mickey. "You didn't help?"

"Of course not," Mickey said easily, grinning widely as he flicked on his flashlight. "I was on lookout."

Gai turned his glare onto him. "I hate you."

Mickey snorted. "Anyway, we found everything you asked for. Wire, tools, rubber gloves… It's all in the box."

"It would have been a lot easier if we could have used the truck," Gai pouted.

"A lot less stealthy, too," Mickey pointed out.

Gai decided to ignore him as he stood up and looked over at the overturned metal crate that Tenchi had turned into his table. He had drawn out what appeared to be some sort of floor plan, and his camera was sitting on the table, showing off one of the pictures on the view screen.

"What exactly are we going to do with all of this crap anyway?" he asked.

Tenchi sat down on the ground and the other two boys joined him around the makeshift table. He grinned slightly and turned the floor plan around so that they could see it, but their faces told him that they still had no idea what he was thinking.

"My uncle is a bit of a firecracker-explosion enthusiast," he said. "One summer, he showed me a little trick you could do with a car's airbag and the right tools. He meant it for me to just have a little fun in that warehouse by my apartment, but by combining our weapons, I think we could do a bit more than that."

Mickey and Gai shared a confused look before they reached into their respective bags. Gai pulled out a red can of gasoline and placed it in front of himself, still not getting it. Mickey hesitated a moment longer before pulling out the four blocks of C-4 he had been given. He suddenly had a pretty good idea of what Tenchi was thinking, especially when he noticed that on the floor plan, Tenchi had circled one room in red marker.

"You don't mean…"

Tenchi brought a finger up to his lips. "Shh!"

He then reached up to grab his collar, blocking out the microphone, and gestured for the other two to do the same. Gai did so without question, but Mickey didn't move for a moment before giving a small sigh and following his example. Once they couldn't be heard anymore, Tenchi nodded, satisfied.

"Look, I don't want to hurt anyone. That's not what I'm talking about here, Mickey. I'm talking about starting a revolution," he said, impassioned. "I'm talking about fighting back against the people who stuck us here. Mr Higa and the rest of his cronies!"

"That's all well and good," Gai said. "But how are we going to do that?"

"We're building a bomb," Mickey told him, quietly.

Gai's eyes widened. "A bomb!?"

Tenchi raised his free hand to calm him down. "I know it sounds scary, but I know what I'm doing. My uncle taught me how to make small explosions, you know… for fun. But with _that_," he pointed at the C-4, "I'm positive we can do a whole lot more. We could take down their headquarters, get these things off of our necks, and then bail!" He looked between his two friends. "Are you with me?"

Gai nodded immediately.

Mickey's hesitation only lasted long enough for him to ask, "Do you really think we could all go home together?"

Tenchi smiled. "Definitely."

"We're not going to end up blowing ourselves up, are we?" Gai asked suddenly. "Because that would be a really lame way to go."

x X x

"How's it coming?" Joe asked.

It was the first word anybody had uttered since Joe had told Matt that TK's heart was still beating after he had disappeared over that cliff. Since then, the tenuous desire to hope had been the only thing keeping most of the digidestined together. Now, Matt was sitting on the floor of the computer room, his eyes glued to TK's portrait, his blue eyes following the heart monitor with every simple beep. Most of the others had fallen asleep by now, but Joe hadn't been able to sleep any better than Matt. And then there was Izzy who was tirelessly moving between his computer and Yolei's as he worked on two things at once.

"Nearly there," Izzy yawned. "I've almost got it…

"Maybe you should get some sleep," Joe whispered worriedly.

"No, I need to do this." Izzy shook his head. "I can sleep once this is over. This part can't do it on its own like the password. I need to be here to work it, to know which move to make next…"

"You can't keep trying to infiltrate their system without sleep," Joe said patiently. "That's not the way the brain works."

"I'm fine," Izzy said. "Anyway, I'm nearly done. I just need to hack into their system, and then they'll be able to get those collars off. I'll be able to deactivate the danger zones, too, and breakdown the firewall that is stopping us from communicating with them."

"What about the others on the island?" Mimi asked.

Both boys jumped, not realizing that anyone else was awake. She gave a bit of a sheepish look as she stepped closer to them before moving to sit on her knees next to Izzy's chair.

"Sorry. I couldn't sleep," she sighed. "So, what about the other kids?"

Izzy shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not sure. The collars could just drop off… but I'm not certain that's what will happen. But if they do, everyone will think something's happened, and they'll all hopefully go back to normal."

"And if they stay on?" Joe asked.

"We'll have communications open by that point, and we'll be able to tell Davis, TK, and Kari to take the collars off, at the very least," Izzy said. "And hopefully we'll be able to warn them about anybody that's nearby. They'll have to keep an eye out and be careful, but I believe I could lead them to the docks to get out of there."

"The docks?" Mimi asked.

"It's the best way off the island," Matt said, suddenly piping into the conversation. He shot a glance their way. "There's a fishing boat in the docks, and there aren't any guards there. So, they should be able to just sail on out of there."

"Do TK, Davis, or Kari know how to sail?" Mimi asked, a little amused.

Joe smiled. "They won't need to. We'll guide them."

"TK hasn't moved from the lighthouse all night," Matt said quietly.

"He's probably resting," Joe said gently. "And if he's not good to travel when communications come back up, we'll tell Davis and Kari where he is."

"His numbers aren't changing constantly like they were earlier," Matt added.

"That's because his blood pressure isn't dropping anymore. It's a good thing. It means that no vital arteries or organs were hit, and that the girls that found him probably bandaged him up." Joe watched his face for a moment before deciding to push further, wanting to keep that desire to hope alive just a little longer. "He's going to be okay."

"If we get him off the island."

x X x

Once again, music filled the island as the sun rose, covering the land mass with the subtle signs of daylight. Boy number 20, Naoki Watanabe, had only one goal in mind: stay hidden. He had a crappy weapon, and he knew he would be no match for most of the people left. The gunfire that he kept hearing in the distance was enough to let him know that much.

"_Good morning, everybody_," Mr Higa said over the speaker system. _"Rise and shine! I know you are all getting fatigued, but these low numbers are very, very disappointing… Let's get to the list_."

Naoki sighed as he moved to pull out his map. So many of the people that he cared about were already gone; he was at the point that he no longer cared what names Mr Higa read off.

x X x

Somewhere on the island, Ami Hidaka stopped brushing her hair to hear the names of the two girls that she had killed during the night.

"_Girl number 8, Hina Kato. Girl number 2, Kimi Fujiwara._"

She grinned to herself. She had no idea that hadn't been the only killer in the woods that night. If she had pursued Kimi after shooting at her back, she probably would not be standing here now. But she was, so she was going to take the credit while she believed it to be hers.

x X x

"_Tsk, tsk. Only two. Definitely not enough to change my mind about the danger zones!_"

Davis looked up from the map in front of him to see Kari staring out the window again. She had been doing that ever since they arrived at the shrine to find it empty. TK was nowhere to be found. Now, she just kept staring off in the direction they had come from, hoping to see him come through the trees. Davis, on the other hand, had his D-3 sitting out in front of him. He kept checking the screen for a third red dot. If TK got close, he would be able to see him appear on his digivice a lot faster than staring out a window.

If TK still had his D-3 on him.

The gogglehead sighed tiredly. He couldn't blame Kari for being so worried; he was feeling the exact same way. They just had two different ways of coping. He just wished she would stop being so quiet and say something.

"_So, a danger zone every hour still! Starting at 7AM, D-12. From 8AM, A-9. From 9AM, E-4. From 10AM, G-10. From 11AM, I-8._"

Davis finished marking off each of the areas. None of them were the shrine, for which he was very thankful. He wasn't sure he'd be able to drag Kari away after reassuring her that this is where TK would come. Davis wasn't even sure where'd they go if they had to leave. He ran a hand down his face before moving to stand and walking over to her.

"Kari, why don't you get some sleep?" he suggested, quietly.

She turned to look at him. "I'm alright," she said, before turning to stare back out the window. "I slept earlier, remember?" Kari turned back to him as she scrutinized his appearance. "But you haven't slept in hours. Davis, you go ahead. I'll keep watch."

He _was_ exhausted, but he was also hesitant to go to sleep and leave Kari out here alone. She smiled lightly and put a comforting hand on his arm.

"I'll be okay. I'm just going to stand right here and keep watch. I'll wake you if anything happens," she promised.

Davis hesitated before nodding. He grabbed his backpack and fluffed it a bit before lying down and resting his head on it. Maybe he could dream about getting off of his island. That would sure be nice…

x X x

"Come on, we've got to keep running," Teppei Nakamura told the other boy gently. "If we get to that lighthouse, we'll have a view of the whole island. Then we'll be able to think of a plan to get away from his place."

"Can't we just rest?" Jimon Chiba asked, exhausted, as he slumped against a tree. "We've been on the run for what seems like hours now."

Teppei's expression softened and he stepped in close to him as he took his hand in his own. "I know… But we can't give up, not now. We don't know who's out there still, playing this game… We have to keep going."

Jimon sighed and leaned forward, resting his forehead against Teppei's chest. Teppei's arms encircled his body in a soft embrace. For a moment, the boys just stayed this way, lost in each other's arms. Then, Jimon looked up at the other boy curiously.

"Why didn't you ever say anything before now?" he asked.

Teppei blushed lightly. "I think I was scared…"

"Of what people would think?"

He nodded. "And if it would get back to my parents." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I was a coward. I've liked you for years."

Jimon shook his head. "You're not a coward. Far from it."

Teppei smiled down at him, and the other boy stood up at his full height to press a kiss to his lips. For a moment, the boys just allowed themselves to enjoy the small make out session in the woods, before Jimon pulled away with a small sigh. Both of their faces were slightly red by this point, but they knew that they couldn't stay here.

"I'm good," Jimon said. "Let's go."

Teppei smiled encouragingly at him before taking his hand and moving to lead the way. He stopped short when he realized that someone was standing there.

"Ami!" Teppei said in surprised. "Hey… You snuck up on us."

"Sorry," the brunette female sighed. She looked between the two boys curious. "What are you doing out here?"

Teppei blushed lightly as he remembered how they had just been kissing, but Jimon was a lot more relaxed.

"Trying to get to the lighthouse to think of a plan of attack," Jimon sighed. "We want to try to get the jerks that are making us play this game. You want to join us?"

Ami shook her head. "No, I'm better off alone." She smiled lightly. "You know, that way I just have myself to look after if I need to get away from anyone."

"Fair point," Teppei said. "Have you seen anyone else around?"

"A few actually," Ami said easily. "What about you?"

Jimon shook his head. "No… No one yet. I guess we've been lucky."

Teppei looked at Jimon. "We should get going." Then, to Ami he added, "Be careful, alright?"

"I will," Ami promised.

The two boys walked past her. Once their backs were to her, she pulled the pistol out of the back of her denim shorts.

"Oh, guys?"

"Yeah?" Teppei asked, turning back to face the girl.

"All gays rot in Hell," she spat out before shooting them both in the chest.

BOY NUMBER 3: JIMON CHIBA, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 11: TEPPEI NAKAMURA, DEAD.

16 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

"C'mon, Izzy," Tai sighed, impatiently.

"Do you want to do this?" Izzy snapped, looking over at his bushy-haired friend with a frown. "It's trickier than I could have ever anticipated. But it's not like I regularly try to hack into the government for fun."

"Maybe you should start," Mimi quipped.

She was ignored. Tai groaned as he watched his friends work. Yolei and Ken were back at their respective stations. It was starting to feel like they were on some sort of ticking time bomb, and he was getting beyond impatient. Izzy tried to hide a yawn as he swallowed it down.

Joe sighed. "Izzy, maybe… maybe you'd be able to think clearer if you got a couple hours of sleep and then came back to it."

As if to prove his point, Izzy yawned again even as he tried to hide it behind his arm. Sora frowned lightly at him and nodded.

"You do kind of look like death warmed over," she said.

Izzy looked between his two friends. He knew that they were right, but he wanted to sort this out sooner rather than later, so he shook his head.

"Izzy," Cody sighed, joining the conversation. "Please, get some sleep."

"We're all starting to worry about you," Ken offered quietly.

Izzy turned to look at Tai, and the gogglehead sighed in defeat. He wanted to get his sister out of there, but he knew the others were right. Izzy wasn't at his best, and that was probably the cause of a lot of the hang-ups that he was running into right now. He walked over to his friend and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Izzy, go. You know how I hate worrying about you."

The two friends shared a smile, and Izzy finally nodded.

"Okay, but please don't do anything to my laptop," Izzy warned everybody in the room. "Don't check your emails, don't surf the net, don't do anything. Okay?"

Tai smiled lightly. "Okay, we promise! None of us will touch your laptop."

x X x

"Where's all the progress?" Mr Higa's said into the microphone in his hand as his voice came through all of the speakers around the island. "Another measly two people were lost throughout the whole six hours! They were: Boy number 3, Jimon Chiba. Boy number 11, Teppei Nakamura. If you don't start to pick up the pace by 6PM, I will be forced to add multiple danger zones an hour! Now, onto the danger zones for this part of the game… Starting at 1PM, C-1. From 2PM, F-11. From 3PM, B-8. From 4PM, A-2. From 5PM, H-9. Get to work!"

Mr Higa walked over to the large screens with a smile on his face despite his annoyance. His eyes scanned the dots of the survivors, taking in the sparse displacement of all of them. Now that they were getting fewer in number, the island was starting to look bigger and bigger.

"At 6PM, I suggest you make the warehouse a danger zone," Lieutenant Kuroi said suddenly from the man's left. "Those three have been there almost the entire game."

Mr Higa turned to look at one of the techs that were keeping track of all of the students. "Any idea what they're up to?"

The tech shook his head. "No idea, sir. We keep losing their audio."

He narrowed his eyes slightly. "I don't like the sound of that. And we don't have a camera inside the warehouse?"

"No, sir."

Lieutenant Kuroi turned to look at him. "Just get them out of there, and we'll have a better idea of what they're doing."

Mr Higa nodded toward a cluster on the north side of the island inside the lighthouse. "What about them?"

"I wouldn't worry too much," Lieutenant Kuroi said. "They're just a bunch of schoolgirls, along with that Takaishi kid that they rescued from the beach. They won't be an issue."

x X x

"Are we becoming a danger zone?" Davis asked sleepily as he sat up from his bag.

He had been roused by Mr Higa's voice, but it had taken him several minutes before he could find the self-control to actually wake fully. His body was screaming for more sleep, but he knew that the few hours that he got were precious to begin with. Still, it was almost funny that he felt more tired now than he had before his nap.

Kari let loose a shaky sigh as she stared at her map before nodding tearfully. Davis stared at her for a long moment as his stomach fell out from beneath him.

"When?"

"At five," she whispered.

"He'll be here," Davis promised, even as he knew that he couldn't know that, but Kari seemed so doubtful that he knew that he had to say it. "Was he on the list?"

Kari shook her head.

"Then there's still hope. It's only noon," he pointed out. "And it's daylight now. He'll be able to see where he's going. He doesn't have his flashlight on him, so he was probably just waiting for it to get light… He'll be here."

"I hope so."

She sniffled and wiped her face of her fallen tears. Davis watched her sadly for a moment before sighing as he stared at his hands. This whole thing was so messed up, and he knew that he shouldn't be having the thoughts that he was having right now. But there was a part of him that kept thinking, if he was going to die in a few minutes, wouldn't he want to know?

"Kari…?" he started, hesitantly. "Do you… _like_ TK?"

For a long moment, she didn't say anything, and Davis winced. He shouldn't have spoken at all, but he wasn't sure if it was possible to take it back now.

"I…" she finally said. "…I don't know. I'm only fourteen, Davis. I thought I had the rest of my life to figure this out. I just wanted to be a kid just a little bit longer."

"We're going to get off this island, Kari," Davis said. "All three of us."

"But we're not going to be same," Kari pointed out.

Davis shook his head slowly. "No… probably not…" He smiled lightly. "I, for one, will never want to go on another field trip again. What? We're going to Hawaii? Uh, no, thanks. I think I'm just going to have a picnic with my friends instead."

Kari giggled tearfully. "Thanks, Davis…" She stood to stare out the window once more. Over her shoulder, she said, "Go back to sleep, Davis. I'll wake you when it's four."

* * *

Next Chapter: A Light at the End


	10. A Light at the End

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. I only own the insane idea to merge these two!

**Author's Note**: I think hope is such an important part of Digimon. Even though Light was the super special crest in the end, I always thought that Hope was the unsung hero of it all. Without Hope, there is no Light. But Miracles? Miracles are rare, and to believe in them, takes a little willingness to Hope. Miracles give people the reason to Hope, and they can be found in the Darkest of hours, Darkest of places, which allows for the Light to shine once again. I think Davis, TK, and Kari are a little trifecta of magic (Digital World magic, not Harry Potter magic), and this is why they couldn't be paired together as DNA Digivolving partners. They had to share that magic with others.

I think it's my love for Digimon and the whole mythology behind it that allows me to take a story like Battle Royale and Digitize it. And I really wanted to make a show out of Battle Royale coming into Digimon, not the other way around. So, yes, if I have managed to keep this story in the spirit of Digimon despite the really sad subject matter, then I have my accomplished my goal!

* * *

**Chapter Ten: A Light at the End**

TK groaned. Pain. Confusion. Even coziness. A lot of stuff was flying through his head as he slowly came to. He was disoriented and laying on a soft, fluffy bed. That should have been a comfort, but he didn't recognize the bedding. He pealed his eyes open and immediately winced against the light. He tried to move and pain shot through his chest. Everything hurt. Or at least, that was his assessment in that moment as he grinded his teeth in an effort not to cry out in pain.

"You're awake!"

With a lot more caution this time, TK opened his eyes again and barely tilted his head until he saw who was sitting next to him. He felt his hope drop when he wasn't met with Kari's face. He had really been hoping when he'd realize the voice was female…

"Haruna?" he asked, confused. He looked around, taking in the white round walls of the room. "Where am I?"

"You're at the lighthouse," Haruna Nakajima said, picking at the sheets covering TK almost shyly.

He hesitated. "On the island?"

She nodded sadly, and TK let out a disappointed breath. He winced again as just breathing was pulling at the injury, whatever it was. TK lifted his head to look down at his body and realized that he wasn't wearing a shirt. He blushed lightly and pulled the covers further up his body, but he'd seen enough to know that someone had bandaged his shoulder snuggly, and there was also a large bandage on his side. He figured he must have looked like a mess. Noticing his sudden shyness, Haruna giggled a little nervously as well.

"Haruna," he started, "why are you helping me?"

The blue haired girl blushed lightly and shook her head. "You came out of nowhere, but it was Koreya who found you. Not us."

_Koreya watched from his hiding place as TK suddenly dived off of the end of the cliff. His eyes widened in surprise before he glanced down at his tracker. The B18 number was as strong as ever. He knew that TK was alive. He glanced back up at the cliff to see Shingo falling to his knees, and he decided to take his chance. He stood and ran along the shoreline, trying to see a glimpse of blonde amongst the black waves. _

_Finally, ahead of him, he saw a body lying on the beach. A glance at his tracker let him know that it was TK, and he sped up before suddenly hesitating. Other numbers were coming into view as well. G10, G12, G13, and G21 all were in a cluster nearby. He spun around, confused, before his eyes landed on the lighthouse. _

_He ran to TK's side, turning him over onto his back and checked for a pulse, before pulling him further up the beach and out of the water. Then, he went running for the lighthouse. Almost immediately, he saw the flash of blue hair, and he knew who was on watch. He raised his hands to show that he was unarmed as he caught the girl's attention. _

"_Haruna! I need your help! It's TK!" _

_Haruna raised a pair of binoculars, her friend Kako Matsumoto's weapon, to her eyes to look down the beach before she finally saw him. She gasped and moved to run inside to get more help. _

"Koreya?" TK repeated, surprised. "Where is he now?"

Haruna shook her head. "He's gone. He said… that he needed to find someone."

"Oh…" He struggled to sit up and winced again as his shoulder was jostled.

The young dancer watched worriedly before suddenly reaching into her purse. "I… I have some painkillers. They're Chika's. I wasn't sure if you were allergic or not."

TK shook his head, and Haruna quickly opened the bottle to give him two pills. He downed them without a second thought. It was hard to even breathe at the moment; he was willing to take anything for the pain at this point. When the pain started to subside somewhat, he turned to look at the girl who was sitting patiently at his side, waiting for him to say something.

He smiled lightly. "Thank you."

She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear bashfully. "I'm glad I could help."

"What time is it?"

"About one," Haruna explained. "Mr Higa did the noon report about an hour ago."

A terrifying thought hit TK suddenly. "And Davis and Kari?"

Haruna shook her head. "They haven't been on the lists."

TK breathed a sigh of relief. His next attempt to sit up went a lot better, and he rested his back against the headboard comfortably while keeping the blankets pulled up to his chest. He thought about the last thing he remembered, and he frowned.

"I've missed three reports…"

"Chuugo's name was on the midnight report," Haruna said. "The 6AM mentioned Hina and Kimi… And the most recent one had Teppei and Jimon."

TK made a face. "Ugh…"

"Oh! And Koreya wanted me to tell you something," Haruna said, remembering suddenly, as she grabbed TK's map off of the side table. "Tenchi, Gai, and Mickey are in the warehouse waiting to see you."

A smile crossed his face. "I knew it… So, they're okay?"

Haruna nodded. "Last Koreya saw, anyway. I marked it for you on your map so that you'd know."

"Thank you."

She tucked another loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You know… You're safe here. They're all my friends. There's me, Chika, Kako, and Anna."

TK smiled. "You wouldn't have saved me if you were bad. I know."

Haruna smiled uncertainly for a moment before she leaned in close, as if she were about to share a secret, and whispered, "TK… about the thing with Wataru… Anna saw it happen, what Davis did…"

He immediately shook his head. "No, Davis didn't do anything. Wataru was attacking me, and Davis tackled him down the hill. When they separated, Wataru's axe…" He sighed. "It was an accident."

"An accident?" Haruna repeated.

"Yes!" TK said. "Davis would never hurt anyone!"

Haruna bowed her head. "I'm sorry…"

Feeling bad for shouting, TK added, quite a bit more gently, "Look… Let's go find Davis and Kari, and then we can all go meet up with Tenchi and the others. We can find a way to get off this island together."

"And you trust all of them?" Haruna asked quietly.

"Yes," TK said strongly. "Completely."

Haruna shook her head. "You shouldn't be moving around. You were shot!"

"I'm fine," TK lied.

"Look," Haruna sighed, realizing that she wasn't going to win, "just relax right now, alright? Chika packed some instant Ramen. I'll go make you some!"

She jumped to her feet, and TK sighed. He leaned back against the headboard and glanced down at his chest again. He tried out his right hand and was grateful to see that it was still in working order, but that didn't stop his entire right arm from feeling like it was on fire. He turned to look at Haruna who was watching him and smiled lightly.

"Did you bandage me?"

Haruna went red before giving a small nod. "Yeah… It's… it's not very good, I know, but…"

"It feels good," TK said, trying to reassure her.

She tucked away some more hair again, a movement that TK was starting to realize must be a nervous habit, before asking, quietly, "Do you like Kari Kamiya?"

TK felt himself starting to go red now. "Uh…"

"Sorry, I just…" She giggled nervously. "I guess a part of me was hoping you'd say no…"

He just gave her a confused look. "What?"

Haruna shook her head quickly. "Forget it." She ran to the door before stopping to send him another look. "I have to lock you in," she explained. "Some of them don't trust guys, but I'll bring you lunch in a minute, okay?"

TK stared at her confused as Haruna closed the door behind her. He listened to her locking it and to her footsteps until they disappeared downstairs. He pushed himself up again and dropped the covers to better inspect his bandages now that he was alone.

He'd been shot in the shoulder from behind; he definitely remembered that. He remembered the explosion of pain, the blood, the way his vision faded in and out… He stared down at the blood splotch on the bandage that had managed to seep through as he tentatively ran his fingers over it. He'd been shot. It didn't matter how many times he said it in his head, he still couldn't believe it. He craned his neck, despite the pain, to look at the back of his shoulder to see matching red spot there, too.

The bandages on his left side were held on with medical tape. He only vaguely remembered the second pain that had accompanied the first, but he could guess just by looking at it that it wasn't that bad of a wound. A bullet graze if he had to guess. And despite the logical assumption, he could only think of one thing: He'd been shot. _Twice_.

_Oh god.._.

TK swung his legs over the side of the bed and moved to stand. Everything spun for a second, and he sat right back down, just barely managing not to fall to the floor. Maybe Haruna was right. Maybe he should just relax. He glanced at the map that Haruna had left unfolded on the side table next to the bed. His eyes widened as he saw the shrine marked with a danger zone.

"No," he whispered.

He had to get out of here. Soon. Or he might not be able to find Kari and Davis again.

x X x

Girl number 21, Anna Yoshida, sat in the kitchen of the lighthouse as she stared at a little vial in her hands. On the front of the vial were the words CYANIDE POISON with a symbol of skull and crossbones. She was sitting on the windowsill overlooking the beach, but not even the peaceful sight could calm her racing mind.

"_Everybody!" Haruna yelled as she ran inside. "TK's hurt! We have to help!" _

_Kako immediately jumped to her feet to run out, but both Anna and Chika hesitated as they shared an uncertain look. _

"_TK was with Davis when he…" Anna trailed off, unable to even utter the words. _

"_Plus, we agreed," Chika said. "We can't trust boys! Not even ones that we have crushes on, Haruna!" _

"_Guys," Kako sighed, shaking her head in a disappointing manner. "This is TK! Not Naoki, for goodness sake. He's one of the good ones!" _

"_Maybe back home," Chika said, "but what about here? What about what happened with Davis?" _

_Haruna crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm going to help. You two can stay here, or you can come with. But either way, I'm bringing him inside."_

"_Haruna!" Chika yelled. _

_She didn't listen. She just turned on her heel and headed down toward the beach. Kako sighed and shook her head at the other two before jogging down after her friend. Chika stubbornly sat down, but Anna picked at the hem of her skirt for a moment before she raced after Haruna and Kako. She didn't stop until the bloody sight of TK made her freeze in her tracks. Her face went pale, and she couldn't move. _

_Not until she saw a little brown vial buried in the sand just a few feet away from his body. She glanced at Haruna, Kako, and Koreya who were working together to get TK up to haul him to the lighthouse. They didn't even seem to notice that Anna had followed them down. She walked over to the vial and picked it up. The label told her everything she needed to know. _

_This must have been TK's weapon. _

Anna gripped the vial tightly in her fists, not having any idea that she was holding Davis's – not TK's – weapon in her hands. She knew it was a good sign that it was still completely full, but she just couldn't help but remember what she saw.

_Separated from everybody, Anna was just trying to remain hidden. She didn't want to fight, but she was frightened by the number of names she had heard earlier. How many of those people had died at the hands of people she considered to be friends? She gasped as she heard a yell, and she crouched down to peer through the bushes. _

_She watched as Davis got to his feet, and a moment later, a bloody Wataru stood with an axe embedded in his head. A moment later, the chubby boy was collapsing again, dead. Her hands flew to her mouth as her eyes filled with fearful tears as she stared at Davis with a newfound dread. Silently, she turned away and ran off, not wanting to be discovered by the soccer player turned murderer._

Anna was startled out of her thinking as Haruna came running into the room with a large grin on her face.

"Guess what?" Haruna sing-songed. "TK's awake!"

"Can he talk?" Chika asked from her spot at the kitchen table.

Haruna nodded. "And he seems hungry! So, I thought I'd make him some Ramen."

She grabbed one of the Ramen packets out of Chika's stash without asking before moving to put some water on the stove to boil. Chika glared lightly but didn't say anything. Haruna didn't even seem to notice as she walked over to Anna's side and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry," she said. "I locked his door."

Anna shook her head, trying to make her smile seem genuine as she looked up at her friend. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not worried anymore."

Haruna wasn't convinced. "What happened with Wataru was an accident. Davis was protecting TK, and in the struggle, Wataru got hurt. That's all."

"And you believe him?" Chika asked, suspiciously.

"Of course!" Haruna said. "Why shouldn't I?"

Wanting to avoid an argument, Anna nodded toward the pot of water. "Your water is boiling."

"Oh!"

Haruna rushed back to the stove and opened the packet of Ramen before dropping the noodles into the boiling water. She started to stir the noodles delicately before turning back toward Anna.

"Will you go get Kako from watch? We have something we need to discuss as a group," she said.

Anna nodded and stuffed the poison vial into her pocket before she jumped up to run up the stairs. Once she was gone, Haruna glanced back to Chika again. The bespectacled girl was looking quite harried at the moment. Her hair wasn't brushed, her clothes were wrinkled from being days old, and the perpetual frown on her face would not leave. Haruna sighed worriedly.

"Chika…"

"We're all dying tomorrow," Chika said.

"Don't start with that," Haruna said, shaking her head at the other girl. "We won't give up until it's over, okay?"

The sound of rushing feet interrupted their conversation as Kako came barreling into the kitchen with a wide grin on her face.

"I heard that TK's awake!" she said, running over to Haruna with a sly smile. "You must be _so_ happy."

Haruna went slightly red. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Anna nodded to the Ramen still on the stove. "Shouldn't that come off by now?"

The blue-haired girl blink. "Oh! I got distracted…"

"It's okay," Anna said, walking over to the stove herself. "I'll get it."

Haruna smiled affectionately at her friend. "Thanks, Anna." She turned back to Kako with a slight shake of her head. "You need to mind your own business."

Anna poured the steaming hot Ramen into a bowl before adding the seasoning. She hesitated a moment before pulling the Cyanide vial out of her pocket and uncorking it to pour it into the soup, too. She quickly mixed everything up.

"You're a bad liar," Kako laughed. "I know you're over the moon. You're having visions of the two of you running off into the sunset together!"

"Kako!" Haruna yelped, bright red in the face.

Anna grabbed the bowl and moved to head toward the stairs, her face set. She never thought she would be the type of girl to do something like this before, but she knew that she had to. She had to protect her friends, and she just really didn't believe that TK was trustworthy. Kako spotted the bowl of Ramen and squealed.

"Oh! Let me!" she grabbed the bowl and sat down at the kitchen table.

"That was for TK," Haruna admonished.

Kako had already taken a bite and stared up at her friend innocently. She swallowed and shrugged. "Make him another one, then! I'm starving. I haven't eaten. I've been on watch all morning, in case you've forgotten!"

Haruna sighed. "Fine."

Anna could only watch white-faced as Kako took another big bite of the Ramen. Nobody noticed. Chika sighed from her spot at the table and looked up at Haruna.

"So, what did you want to talk with us about?" she asked.

"TK wants all of us to head to the warehouse," Haruna said.

Chika made a face. "With Tenchi and those guys? No way. We can't trust boys. We agreed!"

"I know," she sighed. "But it wouldn't just be boys! TK wants to get Davis and Kari, too, and then we could all be together so that we could find a way off of the island! Maybe we could put our heads together and get out of here."

"Or he could be trying to get us all in one place so that he could take us all out," Chika said. "This could be a trap!"

"Oh, Chika," Haruna sighed. She turned to look at Kako. "You agree with me, right?"

But Kako didn't answer. Her hands were over mouth, and her eyes were watering slightly. Chika and Haruna stared in confusion while Anna slowly sank to the floor, unnoticed. She knew what was happening, and she didn't know how to stop it.

"Kako…?" Haruna asked, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"What's going on with you?" Chika asked, confused.

Kako appeared to cough into her hand, and they saw the slightest signs of vomited up blood passing through her fingers. Chika screamed at the sight and jumped away from the table, sending the chair she had been sitting in crashing to the floor. Haruna's eyes widened.

"Oh my god! Kako!"

And then Kako's eyes rolled back into her head and she fell forward into the Ramen, dead. Chika screamed again, her back pressed against the wall as she stared at Kako with wide, frightened eyes. She was shaking her head back and forth, unable to fully believe what she was seeing.

"She's dead!" she yelled. "She's dead! Why is she dead?"

Haruna was frozen in shock as she stared down at her friend who was now dead. She couldn't tear her eyes away.

"I… I don't know…"

"It's food poisoning," Chika accused, terrified.

"No!" Haruna said. "It can't be!"

"It's poison!" Chika repeated. "_POISON!_"

She leapt across the room to snatch up her weapon, a M9 submachine gun, as she pointed it between Haruna and Anna who was on the floor. She was beyond reason. Her eyes were wide, and she was shaking all over out of fear.

"Who did it?" she shrieked. "Which of you did it?"

"Chika, stop!" Haruna sobbed. "This is some terrible mistake!"

"We're the only ones here!" she screamed. She pointed that gun at Anna. "You cooked it! You did it!"

"N-no!" Anna denied. "I… I just served it…"

"Then it was you!" Chika shrieked, pointing the gun at Haruna.

"Me? Poison?" Haruna breathed. "You're insane! It wasn't anybody! Just cut it out! Lower the gun!"

"And let you get the drop on me?" Chika said. "No way!"

"You're acting really suspicious, Chika!" Haruna accused. "How do I know you didn't do it? You haven't slept in two nights! It's like you don't trust us…"

"I… I forgot my sleeping pills…" she said.

"You brought pills for everything else," Haruna pointed out. "In fact, you were the only one with access to stuff to make a poison at all…"

"I let all of you into my medicine bag!" Chika said. "All of you!" And then she gasped. "You were going to poison all of us, weren't you? You schemed with TK to escape together!"

Haruna shook her head. "I wouldn't!"

Unable to take it anymore, Chika screamed as she opened fire. Haruna screamed as she hit the ground, several of the bullets having hit her left arm, which now lay helplessly by her side. Anna screamed as she covered her head from the hail of bullets and the ricochets that bounced around the room.

x X x

Upstairs, TK spun toward the door as he heard the gunfire. His heart leapt up into his throat and he threw himself out of the bed. He cursed under his breath at the pain that shot up through his body from the jostling before he crouched on the other side of the bed, away from the door. His heart was beating so loudly in his chest. Just the sound of the gunfire was sending terrible visions in his head of the explosion of pain, the splattering of blood. His left hand went for the knife holster on his leg, but it was empty.

He had forgotten. He had left the knife embedded in Shingo's foot.

The gunfire started again, and he sunk down lower to the ground. He was starting to hyperventilate out of fear. He didn't know what was going on. But he wasn't armed, and he was injured. He knew he would be no match in a fight. Maybe… maybe they just wouldn't come up here… He thought of Haruna and the other girls she had mentioned were down here. Had Shingo found them? Was he massacring them all right now?

x X x

Haruna reached up onto the counter with her good arm to pull down her own weapon, the same type of gun as Chika's. She held it close to her chest for a moment before she forced herself to stand and started to fire off with one hand. She immediately got Chika in the abdomen just before she ducked behind a cabinet. Chika screamed in agony from her hiding spot, before she jumped back up. She leapt onto the table, and opened fire on Haruna who fired right back until both girls were too wounded to continue. Chika collapsed onto the table, and Haruna lay on the kitchen floor, bleeding out. Chika turned her gun onto Anna, who had pushed herself so far into the corner as she sobbed for her life, wanting to disappear and just go home.

"Not you, right?" Chika gasped. "It wasn't you, right?"

Anna tearfully shook her head.

"At the very least… I thought I'd live until tomorrow…" Chika said.

Haruna lifted her gun one last time to shoot Chika in the head, finally killing the other girl. Haruna groaned with pain, both emotionally and physically, as tears escaped the corner of her eyes.

"What idiots…" she whispered. "I really thought we could all survive… We're all so stupid… So stupid…"

And then she was dead.

Anna stared around at the bloody scene in front of her as tears ran down her face. She shook her head at the voices shouting in her mind, screaming that it was all her fault. _All_ her fault. She sobbed into her knees and shook her head.

"No… It's not… It's not my fault…" she cried. "It's not my fault… It's not!"

GIRL NUMBER 10: KAKO MATSUMOTO, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 12: CHIKA MOCHIZUKI, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 13: HARUNA NAKAJIMA, DEAD.

13 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

TK laid face down on the floor, staring under the bed toward the door, waiting for it to open. Maybe if he just stayed quiet long enough, the shooter would just go away. He felt so cowardly in the moment, but he couldn't get the images and reminders of the pain he had experienced out of his head. He just kept hearing the gunshots and the pain exploding in his shoulder. His vision going white and then going black… He knew that he was locked in the room. He knew that he was unarmed. And a big part of him just really wanted to get home still, somehow.

He gasped and held his breath as he heard someone at the door of his room. The door unlocked and opened. And then he saw two feminine ankles step in the room before stopping. "TK…" the sobbing voice said. He knew he'd been seen. He couldn't hide anymore. He rose up, trembling, to find Anna standing on the other side of the bed. She had tears running down her face as she stared at him.

"Anna…?" he asked, realizing who it was. "What…? What happened? What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, TK," she sobbed. "I forgot… what it meant… to be a friend."

And then without any further explanation, she went running from the room. TK was left there, completely baffled and scared, listening to her footsteps as she ran upstairs, until he finally managed to push himself to his feet. He wavered uncertainly at first before he managed to push away the pain and fear. He remembered Anna's footsteps suddenly. She hadn't been running to flee the lighthouse. She had been running to…

"ANNA!" TK shouted, running up the stairs after her.

Every hurried step pulled on his injuries in ways that sent rockets of pain through his system, but he ignored it until he reached the top. He ran out onto the lighthouse observation deck just in time to see Anna standing on the outside of the railing. Her eyes were closed, and with one last helpless sob, she stepped off. TK yelped and leapt forward just in time to catch Anna's hand as she started to fall, and both the boy and girl screamed as pain shot from her shoulder up to his own injured one. He refused to let go, though, even as fire trailed along the injured limb.

"It's okay!" he said as Anna continued to cry. "It's okay, I've got you! Just hold on!"

"I was so wrong about you," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry…"

TK had no idea what she was talking about, but he didn't really care at the moment. He held onto her hand with all of the strength of his left arm, but his right arm was quickly growing numb from pain as he clutched the railing, trying to keep himself steady. Any other day, he might have been able to actually accomplish pulling the tiny girl up with one arm. Right now, though, it was feeling nearly impossible. Painful tears entered his eyes as he started to pull with all of willpower, trying to haul her up.

"TK…" she said, staring up at him. He looked down into her tearstained face just as she smiled. "Thank you…"

And then she pried her hand from his grasp before he could stop her and fell down to the rocks below. TK laid there on his stomach, stunned, staring at the scene below him for several long moments before scrambling away from the ledge.

At the bottom, splayed out against the rocks, was Anna as the waves splashed around her lifeless body.

GIRL NUMBER 21: ANNA YOSHIDA, DEAD.

12 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

"Have Kari and Davis found TK yet?" Izzy asked groggily as he made his way back out of his bedroom and headed straight for his computer.

Mimi let out a bit of a disappointed sigh and shook her head. "No. TK just left the lighthouse, though. Something… bad happened to the girls he was with."

Izzy sank into his chair and gave her a worried look. "Bad?"

"We're not sure," Yolei added. "There's not a camera that looks into the lighthouse. But one second, everything was fine. The next…"

"They were all dead," Joe whispered.

Izzy's eyes widened.

"TK didn't do it," Matt added sharply.

The computer genius turned to look at him. "I know that, Matt… But was he… I mean, is he okay?"

Cody nodded. "Yeah… Well, not exactly, but he's the same as he was earlier, anyway. He wasn't involved in whatever happened. He was locked in the room they put him in."

"The girls just flipped out," Tai said, a little pale as he stared up at the big screen. "They just started killing each other for no reason…"

"Izzy," Sora said, getting his attention, "the shrine where TK's headed to meet up with Davis and Kari becomes a danger zone at five. Do you think you can get it done by then?"

Izzy looked around the group and nodded. "I'll give it my best shot."

x X x

Davis groaned lightly as he woke up. Kari was standing over him as she lightly shook him awake. She had a sad smile on her face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's four."

"Already?" he groaned, wiping at his face.

She nodded and sighed, looking around the area. "How long do you think we could stay before it's too late?"

Davis shook his head. "We should just go. You know that's what TK would want."

"I know," she said. She gave him a small smile. "You were sleeping pretty soundly. I'm sorry I had to wake you."

He hesitated. "I had this dream…"

"What dream?" Kari asked.

"I was in the Digital World," Davis said, "and for some reason… Mr Fujiyama was there. I told him… I'm really sorry that I was such a pain in the butt all these years. I told him that he was a really great teacher."

Kari watched him sadly for a moment before swallowing down a lump in her throat. "Maybe it wasn't just a dream," she offered.

"That'd be nice," he said, moving to start getting their stuff together. "I should say stuff like that more often, and I really shouldn't be so hard on my teachers. Maybe I'm part of the reason why they made this stupid law."

"You are _not_," Kari said, kneeling in front of him. "You don't terrorize your teachers, Davis. You just make a few bad decisions. All of your teachers know that you're a good kid. Even Mr Fujiyama knew. You don't have to worry about that."

"I think…" He swallowed. "I think I'm a lot more sheltered than I realized. I always thought I was pretty special, you know? Being a digidestined and all. I thought I somehow knew more about the world than most other kids our age. But now I realize… it was all just in my head. I'm no more special than anyone else."

Kari didn't say anything. She just pulled him into a hug. Over her shoulder, he saw water droplets start to fall, and he let out a small sigh.

"It's raining."

She didn't say anything.

"Maybe we should wait 15 minutes to see if it stops."

Her hold on him tightened, and he felt her nod against his shoulder.

* * *

Next Chapter: Support Systems


	11. Support Systems

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon or Battle Royale. If I did, I imagine I'd have some extra money laying around!

**Author's Note**: I'm so happy that people are watching this amazing movie because of this story! Haha, I love the movie, so of course, I think everybody should see it. The lighthouse scene that happened in the last chapter is one of the most iconic... And I purposefully went out of my way not to try to match it. For one, I had fewer girls. In the movie, the lighthouse scene is so chaotic and crazy because there are so many females in that scene. In mine, I only had four, and that really took away something in that scene. That included having Anna do more than just dwell like she did in the movie. One day, I probably will go back and rewrite that scene, but for now, I am happy with how it came out from TK's POV. I didn't want him to be Nanahara and banging on that door, begging to be let out... TK hid. He was scared. And I can't blame him.

Another iconic scene is in this chapter. Again, I fear I might disappoint some people since I didn't even include it... At least, not the way it is in the movie. It just didn't fit in my world. So, hopefully it's not too bad. Again, I am quite proud, actually, or what I did write, but I always am up for constructive criticism as I love to improve!

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Eleven: Support Systems**

The rain poured down heavily.

TK had once read about these freak storms that seemed to come out of nowhere and then leave just as quickly. He found himself idly thinking about Mimi's stories of the few that she experienced while in Hawaii or the news story his mother once wrote about the Philippines. He wondered if that's where they were. He'd never been to the Philippines, so there was no way for him to know, but it was an interesting thought.

Far more interesting than focusing on the burning pain running through his body every time a raindrop landed on his shoulder. It was both relaxing as the water cooled down the inflamed area and painful as the rain pelted his body. He hadn't been able to find his shirt, and honestly, he'd been way too freaked out to stick around the lighthouse to look too well. But he'd grabbed the first bag he could find and filled it with the weapons he'd seen sitting out on the tables and in their hands, choking back his gag reflex and his tears as he did.

The bag now hung on his left shoulder as he navigated through the rain, trying to head to the shrine. His digivice told him that it was nearing a quarter after 4PM, but maybe Kari and Davis were still in the area. Maybe he would be able to catch up with them. He tried to ignore the fact that he was moving at a painstakingly slow pace now that he had been injured. Every couple of steps saw him getting lightheaded and having to find the closest tree before he fell off his feet, and the rain had soaked his bandages, sending a cascade of red water down his chest.

He just hoped that wasn't a sign that he was bleeding again.

_As Nancy Takaishi held up another shirt to her son's chest, TK resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This was why he had been avoiding his mother the past few days. He knew that she would want to take him shopping for new clothes now that he had, once again, outgrown most of the stuff he owned. But shopping with his mother was not exactly his definition of fun. _

_Even now, he could hear her sigh under her breath, "Ninth grade! Insane!" _

_He groaned. "Mom!" _

_She gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, sorry! I'm just having a hard time believing how time flies." _

_Nancy put the shirt back without asking for her son's opinion as she pulled another, this one a dark blue dress shirt. TK made a face, but she ignored him and held it up to his chest, trying to gauge how it would look on him. To his left, TK heard giggling, and he turned his head before going red. _

"_Oh man…" _

_Nancy turned to look as well and smiled at the two girls that were half watching them. She smiled slightly, amused at her son's expense. _

"_They go to your school?" she asked. _

_He nodded. "Yep. So… can we hurry this up? Please?" _

_Haruna and Kako giggled some more before they moved to exit the store, and TK groaned, slightly mortified. Nancy just grinned at her son. _

"_Am I embarrassing you?" she asked. _

"_A little," he admitted. _

_She poked him in the chest. "Get used to it. I'll be embarrassing you until you're thirty. Now, try this on." She shoved the shirt into his arms before patting his 14-year-old butt toward the dressing rooms. _

TK's foot caught a tree root on the ground, and he yelped as he lost his balance and fell. His hands were thrown in front of himself automatically to break the fall and pain erupted in his right shoulder. He screamed as he rolled onto his left side, cradling the sensitive area with tears in his eyes. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the rain falling into his face.

Maybe he should have followed Anna's example…

"_So, you're actually pretty good at this," Matt said as he watched the basketball sail through the hoop for the sixth time in a row. _

_TK grinned as he jogged forward and caught the bouncing ball before he ran back to his spot behind the three-point line. He shrugged lightly at the comment. _

"_Yeah, I guess," he said, easily. "At least, the coach thinks so." _

"_I see…"_

"_You don't have to come to the games, though," TK suddenly offered as he threw another perfect basket. _

_Matt blinked. "What? Why would you say that?" _

"_The others don't either," TK added. "I know you guys don't really like basketball." _

"_Hey," Matt said, "just because Tai, Sora, Davis, and Ken all play soccer doesn't mean that we all hate basketball." _

_TK caught the ball again before throwing his brother a disbelieving look. "Whatever you say, Matt," he said, running back to his shooting spot. "I'm just saying that you guys don't have to come if you don't want to. I'll understand." _

"_We're coming," Matt said. "End of discussion."_

TK sobbed into the rain before forcing himself to take a deep breath.

"I can do this," he whispered. "I can do this…"

With that small encouragement, he forced himself to his feet. He was going to make it to Davis and Kari, one way or another.

X X x

Davis and Kari sat side-by-side as they stared out through the rain outside the shrine. The 15 minute mark was quickly approaching, and Davis knew that they wouldn't be able to wait any longer. If they got caught here when it hit 5 o'clock, they would both be dead. He glanced down at his D-3 sitting on the floor in front of him and sighed as the time betrayed him. They couldn't wait any longer, no matter how much he wanted to.

"C'mon," he whispered, moving to push himself up, "we need to get going."

Kari didn't move. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and she sucked in a shaky breath. He felt like the worse friend ever right now, but he didn't know what else he could possibly do.

"Look," he continued, "we'll go the teahouse to the west of here. It's the closest place outside of the danger zone. I think he'll know to look for us there. And as soon as it's 6, we'll come right back here."

She bowed her head to stare at her D-3 without saying a word. Davis shook his head, feeling quite defeated as he moved to gather their bags. Abruptly, Kari leapt to her feet.

"TK!" she whispered.

And then she went running from the shrine. Davis stared after her with wide eyes for a moment before running to the archway of the building.

"Where are you going?" he shouted.

"It's TK!" she shouted over her shoulder. "I'm going to meet TK!"

She disappeared through the trees, and Davis cursed under his breath as he moved to run after her before he stopped. He stared back at their bags, still just sitting there. He knew that if they left now, they wouldn't have time to come back for them. Muttering about frustrating women under his breath, he quickly moved to gather his bags before he picked up his D-3. He stared. Three red dots blinked up at him from the screen.

Kari hadn't been running off unwittingly. TK was here. Davis grinned and exited the shrine to follow the signal.

"Kari, wait up!"

He was slowed down quite a bit by the bags, but he wasn't worried. TK was here. Everything was going to okay now.

X X x

Kari clutched the pink D-3 tightly in her fist as she ran through the trees. The injury on her leg was a forgotten thought in the back of her mind. She barely even noticed the pain as she sped through the wooded area's brush. She could hear Davis's voice echoing behind her and getting further away, but she knew he would be able to catch up as soon as she found TK. She would stop, and they all be together again. But she had to see TK. She had to see for herself that he was alright.

She came to a skidding halt as she found a gazebo in the middle of the forest. Someone was standing under the shelter of the small structure, and for a moment, the two 9th graders simply stared at each other. It wasn't TK, and Kari hesitated, wondering if she should go running in the opposite direction or not. But the boy standing there wasn't moving to immediately attack her, and she couldn't help but think that maybe that was a good sign.

Davis had been saying from the beginning that they needed more allies, right?

"Naoki…?" she asked, hesitantly.

"Kari," he said, blinking at her. "Hi. What's up?"

"I'm looking for TK," she answered. "Have you seen him?"

Naoki Watanabe shook his head. "No… Did you two get separated?"

"A while ago," she admitted.

She resisted the urge to check her D-3 to see how close TK was getting. She wasn't sure if now would be the best time to explain to Naoki what a digivice did exactly. She stepped toward him slowly, her eyes scanning his hands and pockets for any weapons. She felt almost guilty for checking, but she couldn't help it. Maybe this game had already affected her more than she realized.

"Are you alone?" she asked.

"Have been from the beginning. Just been trying to keep out of sight." Naoki gestured around the gazebo. "You want to get out of the rain?"

Kari hadn't even realized that she was soaked until he spoke. She looked down at herself for a moment, and her eyes flickered to her D-3. TK was so close, and he was heading right for her. She could see Davis's dot heading in her direction as well. They would be here soon. She smiled to herself before remembering his question. She shook her head.

"This is going to be a danger zone soon," she told him.

"We're just on the edge, actually," he said. "We're in area H-10. A few more meters that way, and then we'd be in trouble." He gestured off in the direction Kari had come. "C'mon. You can at least wait out the rain before you go looking for TK again. My guess is these showers don't last long… Though, I guess I could be wrong."

Kari started to shake her head. She didn't really care about the rain; she just wanted her friends together again.

"I haven't seen a single person since all of this started," Naoki said quietly. "I've just heard things… in the distance…"

She saw the loneliness in his face, and her heart started to break a little. She had Davis and TK this whole time to lean on. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like for those who had been alone from the beginning, nobody to rely on but themselves. She really had been lucky. She looked down at her shoes for a moment before sighing.

"Maybe…" she started, walking up to him and stepping under the gazebo, "Maybe you could come with me to look for TK."

Naoki smiled slightly. "Alright… but can we sit for a moment first? I was running for… like… two hours before this. I think I was being chased by the female transfer student… Nana or whatever…"

Kari frowned. "That's awful. Are you alright?"

He nodded and moved to sit on the steps of the gazebo. "I think so. Mostly just scared. Pretty sure I'm going to die tomorrow, and that's a weird feeling."

She threw a look toward the trees where she imagined TK to be, not too far from here, before she moved to sit next to Naoki. She wanted to keep searching, but she believed that TK knew where to find her. And if they were really in a safe place outside of the danger zone, then maybe this would be a good rendezvous point for all of them.

"We might not," she said quietly. "There's still hope."

"It's hard to see it," he said. "You know, when this first started, I was like… How could anyone play this game _at all_? But now… I think I get it."

Kari sent him a wary look. "You do?"

Naoki nodded, almost anxiously, as his hand fiddled with something in his pocket as if a nervous twitch. "We're being told by the government that it's okay to perform all of these heinous acts, and the likelihood that we'll have to live with any of the consequences is very low, so we might as well go out with a bang, right?"

"I guess…"

He let out a breath he had been holding as he waited for her answer. "I'm glad you don't think I'm crazy."

"Of course not," Kari said. "I—"

Naoki pulled a little can out of his pocket that he sprayed into Kari's face. She hadn't seen it coming. In hindsight, she realized that she should have. Hadn't she been the one that was so hesitant to trust anyone in the first place? But all of these thoughts were long after the fact. In the moment, all Kari felt was pain that exploded in her eyes before Naoki was pressing his hand against her mouth and slamming her back against the gazebo floor.

Kari couldn't see anything. The pepper spray burned against her eyes and skin; it felt like sandpaper was sitting beneath her eyelids. She wanted to scream, but she could barely breathe. She coughed and tried to gasp for breath against his hand, but the obstructing surface was quickly making her go dizzy from lack of oxygen. Somehow, through the pain and the dizzy spells, she could still remember her brother's fighting spirit.

She started to claw at his hands and tried to scratch at his face, but she could barely get her eyes open, let alone see anything. He wasn't letting up, and no matter how much she pushed, she couldn't seem to get him off of her. She was trapped. Tears leaked out of corner of her eyes from pain and panic. She was screaming as loud as she could in her throat, but the coughing and choking swallowed every desperate cry. The rain masked the rest of the sounds.

_I don't want to die!_

Kari tried to kick her legs out, trying to find a weak spot, when she realized that he was straddling her. Gritting her teeth, she brought her knee up hard and quick, catching Naoki in the groin. He cried out in pain and finally let go of her face. Kari gulped in a gasp of air, but she didn't let herself celebrate. She brought both of her legs up to her chest before blindly kicking out above her. Her feet connected with something hard, and she heard something _snap_ from above her. Naoki screamed in pain as he fell off of the gazebo stairs followed by a second, stomach-turning _crack_.

"D-Davis…" she tried to call out, but it came out as a mere croak.

She crawled down the stairs of the gazebo, blindly groping until she found the ground and then fell onto her back. The rain felt soothing against her burning eyes, and she continued to cough and gasp for air as she laid there. She realized that her D-3 wasn't in her hand anymore. She hoped that she hadn't lost it. Kari knew that she couldn't stay here. She wasn't sure if Naoki was recovering from her attack or not, but she knew that staying here could mean death.

But she was blinded. How was she supposed to know which way to go?

"_Kari_?"

The voice that cut through the rain was like an answered prayer. She rolled over onto her side to try to crawl to it, but there wasn't any need. She heard the hurried stumbling run of TK, and then he was kneeling next to her to pull her into his arms. She leaned into his embrace gratefully as she cried against his chest.

"TK!" she sobbed. "I thought you were…"

"Shh… I'm here. What happened? Where's Davis?" he asked shakily.

She realized that she was resting against his bare chest a second later, except for what she guessed were bandages. She forced her eyes open against the burn and gasped.

"You're hurt…"

"Where's Davis?" TK repeated.

"He was… behind me…" she coughed, feeling her throat start to swell again.

"_Davis!_" TK yelled.

"TK?" Davis's voice called back. "TK! Thank God. You're… What…? What happened…? _Kari_?"

"Where were you?" TK snapped. "You were supposed to protect her!"

"I… I was right behind… I didn't hear… I thought she was safe…"

"You were _supposed_ to _protect her!_" TK yelled. "That means not letting her out of your sight!"

"I didn't… God, Kari, are you okay?" Davis asked.

"I can't see," she whimpered. "He sprayed something in my eyes, and now I can't see."

"Pepper spray," Davis said quietly. "There's, uh… a can…"

"Davis, do we have any water left?" TK asked.

"I… I think so…" Davis said.

Kari didn't have to open her eyes to be able to guess how bad he was feeling. He sounded so certain and shell-shocked. It was so unlike himself. The anger in TK's voice wasn't helping matters either and it definitely didn't sound like the normal calm TK that they were all used to. She heard Davis shuffle through one of the bags for a second before TK gently leaned her head back.

"Open your eyes," he said.

She forced herself to listen to him, and then he was pouring water across her eyes. He continued the small trickle across her face until the bottle was empty. Everything still burned, but maybe it was a little less than before. It was hard to tell with all of her senses on fire. TK and Davis were arguing over her head, but she wasn't really sure what they saying. Honestly, she didn't care.

"Stop it!" she snapped. "Both of you. We're together again. That's all that matters. It's my fault, anyway, TK. I left Davis with all of the bags… I should have been more patient, but when I saw you were coming our way, I just…"

"You ran to meet me?" TK whispered.

She nodded.

"Kari, why would you do that? I'm not worth it."

"TK, don't be upset with Davis," she said.

A pause fell over them before TK sighed. "I'm not," he said. Then, to Davis, he repeated himself, "I'm not mad at you."

"I should have been here," Davis said. "I just forgot… I forgot how much danger we were in. I forgot how alone we were out here. I even… forgot we weren't in the Digital World for a moment. I'm sorry."

"Me too," TK whispered.

Kari swallowed and resisted the urge to rub her burning eyes; she knew it would only make it worse. Davis reached into another one of the backpacks before he pulled out a shirt and threw it at TK with a small smile.

"Maybe you can put a shirt on now?"

TK scowled but finally let go of Kari to pull on the blue t-shirt that Davis had thrown at him. He was pretty sure it wasn't his and belonged to the gogglehead instead, but he didn't care. He didn't exactly relish walking around bare chested no matter what the expression on Davis's face seemed to think. He withheld a pained groaned as he had to work his damaged arm into the sleeve, but he couldn't ignore the worried look on Davis's face that replaced the teasing one. He quickly realized that he preferred it when he was making fun of him.

"I couldn't find my shirt," he mumbled, wanting to ignore the worry.

Davis raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, then…"

"_Not_ like that," TK said, going red. "It was… I was…" He swallowed. "I brought weapons," he said, suddenly changing the subject.

"Weapons?" Kari asked, a little shocked. "Why?"

"I'm hurt," TK admitted. "And weak… I'm kind of useless, but I'm going to do everything in my power to protect you and Davis. No matter what it takes."

"Me too," Davis said quietly. He was staring at TK's weapon bag with a sense of determination. "I will not let you down again."

Kari smiled sadly to herself. "What about Naoki?" she asked.

Immediately, both boys fell into silence again. They glanced at each other uncertainly before nodding.

"We should get going," Davis said. "Someone may have heard all the shouting."

"TK…? Davis…? What happened to Naoki?" she asked again.

Davis helped her to her feet and started to guide her, despite her protests, out of the clearing. Behind them, Naoki laid, dead. His face was covered in blood from the broken nose that Kari had given him, and the back of his head was cracked open from the rock he had landed on after losing his footing.

BOY NUMBER 20: NAOKI WATANABE, DEAD.

11 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

Girl number 17, Iria Sugiyama, held her hands over her mouth tearfully as she hid behind some rusty bins. The rain outside beat down against the aluminum ceiling of the dilapidated building, and water leaked through, creating water puddles all around the floor. Boy number 7, Koreya Kikuchi, had walked into her little dojo almost two minutes ago, completely soaked. He held something in his hand, but from her angle, Iria wasn't sure what it was. She honestly didn't care. She just wanted him to go away. She didn't want to die. A tear ran down her cheek.

Koreya glanced around the dojo again as he double checked his tracker to make sure he was in the right place. According to the GPS locator, he was practically standing on top of Iria, but he didn't see her anywhere. Spotting a used water bottle near the back wall, Koreya frowned. She was here, somewhere, he just wasn't sure where.

"Iria?" he called out. "Iria, where are you?"

The frightened girl reached into her bag to pull out her pistol and held it tightly against her chest. She tried to silently beg him to go just go away, but he couldn't seem to hear her mental pleas. Or maybe he just didn't care.

"Iria, I know you're in here," Koreya said. "Just come on out!"

Something inside the dancer snapped, and she popped out from behind the cans with a frightened scream before emptying her gun in the direction of Koreya's voice. A few of the bullets missed, but most of them hit their mark before Koreya collapsed to the ground in a shivering, bloody mess. But he was still breathing, and he was staring up at her… and smiling.

"You're okay," he whispered. "I'm so glad…"

Iria stared down at him from her perch in shock. "W-what?"

"You should run…" Koreya gasped. "Someone will have heard… the gunshots… Run!"

"You… you can't be serious!" she said, starting to walk down the steps to the floor. "Why… why are you saying this?"

"I came here… to… to see you." He had to stop to cough. "To try to save you, actually…"

Finally, it started to make sense. Iria shook her head in denial. "No… you can't mean…"

"I've been in love with you, Iria… for a long, long time…" Koreya admitted with his last breath.

And then he was gone. Iria stared for a long moment before she shakily managed to find her way over to his body, half covered in water from the leaky roof. His eyes were closed, as if he had used his last moments to make sure that she wouldn't have a mindless stare to deal with. She realized what she had done. Iria fell to her knees next to him as she began to sob.

"What did I do?" she cried. "Why didn't you ever tell me? You never even talked to me… I never knew… How could I have known? I thought you were going to hurt me… Oh, no… Koreya! Koreya! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry! How could I…? What am I supposed to do now?"

"Die!"

Iria spun toward the voice just in time to see Ami Hidaka emerge from the shadows before the other girl was pulling the trigger of her gun. The shot hit Iria right in the chest, and she fell back into Koreya's waiting arms. Weakly, she tilted her head to look up into Koreya's peaceful face, and she smiled. Maybe… maybe dying… was the best option after all.

BOY NUMBER 7: KOREYA KIKUCHI, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 17: IRIA SUGIYAMA, DEAD.

9 PLAYERS TO GO.

Ami walked up to the two bodies and frowned down at them. "Nobody will rescue you," she told both of the corpses. "That's just life."

So focused on staring down at two people that used to be her friends, she didn't hear someone else enter the dojo until it was too late. She felt the pain explode across her chest as she was sent to her knees in shock. She turned toward her killer with a shocked expression to find Shingo Kobayashi standing there. His right foot was being dragged behind him uselessly, and he was leaning heavily against the walking stick he was using. The automatic weapon he had just shot her with sat in his freehand.

Considering the pale complexion and sweat across his face, Ami realized that she probably could have taken him had she only been paying more attention. Her face crumbled with regret as the blood loss made her fingers go numb, and her pistol fell to the ground with a clatter.

"I… I just didn't want to be a loser anymore…" she whispered to her killer.

Shingo didn't seem to care as he pulled the trigger again, this time hitting her in the head and killing her. Shingo struggled over to her body and checked over each of the guns, finding Naeko's pistol and Iria's firearm both empty. He dropped his submachine gun to the ground next to the dead bodies, the weapon being out of bullets as well, before he finally picked up Morio's crossbow off of Ami's back and left the dojo behind him.

GIRL NUMBER 6: AMI HIDAKA, DEAD.

8 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

The sun started to set across the island once more to the backdrop of classical music. Mr Higa looked out on it, completely oblivious to what was going on back in Japan. All that he cared about was that the numbers were getting lower, and the death count was getting higher.

"Good evening, everybody," he smiled and then laughed. "Everybody? I'm only talking to the eight of you that are left! Here are your dead…"

x X x

"How are your eyes feeling, Kari?" Davis asked, noticing that he wasn't leading her as much anymore.

She sent him a small smile. "Better." She nudged him in the side when he looked away guiltily. "It wasn't your fault."

"I should have been there," he said.

"And I should have waited," Kari said. "I'm sorry."

Davis opened his mouth to tell her not to apologize when he glanced over his shoulder and saw TK wasn't following anymore. He was struggling to pull his map out, and he rolled his eyes at his injured friend. TK could be downright stubborn sometimes.

"TK," he said. "Don't worry, I got it." He pulled out his own map with ease and then nodded Kari over to TK. "You two cripples just hang out there while I write this down."

TK glared lightly at him but didn't protest.

"_Girl number 10, Kako Matsumoto. Girl number 12, Chika Mochizuki. Girl number 13, Haruna Nakajima…_"

Davis slowly turned to look up at TK. "Didn't you say that Haruna was the one that bandaged you up?"

The pained look on the basketball player's face told him everything he needed to know.

"_Girl number 21, Anna Yoshida. Boy number 20, Naoki Watanabe…_"

Kari gasped. "Dead? You didn't tell me he was dead!"

TK and Davis shared a worried look.

"Kari…" Davis started.

"You made it sound like he ran off!" she accused.

"_Boy number 7, Koreya Kikuchi. Girl number 17, Iria Sugiyama. Girl number 6, Ami Hidaka…"_

"Because we knew it was an accident," TK said quietly. "He hit his head, Kari. It was an accident."

"It wasn't your fault," Davis added.

"Then why couldn't you just tell me that?" Kari whispered, tears that had nothing to do with the leftover effects of the pepper spray gathering in her eyes.

"We didn't think you should see it," Davis admitted. "We knew you wouldn't care it was an accident. You'd take the blame anyway."

TK put an arm around Kari's shoulders as she dropped her head into her hands.

x X x

Mr Higa scanned the screens with a large smile on his face.

"I am impressed with your progress," he said into the microphone. "And because of that, I will give you a reward. The danger zones will only be every two hours again. Starting at 7PM, E-11. From 9PM, H-2. And from 11PM, D-6. Have fun!"

He shut off the microphone and Lieutenant Kuroi stepped up next to him. He, too, had a smile on his face as he surveyed the screens.

"Only seven more losers until we have our winner," the lieutenant pointed out.

"What do you think, sir?" Mr Higa asked. "Do you think it will take them the full remaining 30 hours to finish the game?"

Lieutenant Kuroi shrugged. "There's no telling. We still have two groups that are remaining loyal to their allies. If they decide not to turn on each other, we may end up with no winner at all."

Mr Higa pointed at the map with a smile. "Looks like one of our transfer students is about to crash one of those parties."

x X x

"Izzy, what is taking so long?" Tai growled. "You said you would have it an hour ago!"

"No," Izzy said. "I said I would try. But calm down, alright? Just two more minutes!"

Surprised by that estimation, everybody in the room bristled and got to their feet in anticipation. Izzy continued typing something on the computer before pressing the enter key. He grinned widely and spun in his chair to face the rest of the digidestined with a triumphant look on his face.

"That's it?" Mimi asked, confused. "I don't see anything different."

"And the collars are still on," Matt pointed out.

Unperturbed, Izzy started to count down, "Five, four, three, two…"

On cue, they heard three loud beeps. Almost immediately, every remaining living portrait switched from ACTIVE to INACTIVE as the collars shut off. Everybody in the room cheered, and Tai threw his arms around Izzy in a tight hug.

"I knew you could do it," he whispered.

Izzy hugged his friend back before pulling away to pick up his D-Terminal. "Now, I can send an email to Davis to let him know that he can remove those collars."

"Whoa, what's going on?" Sora asked, watching the screen.

Every camera that they had been watching started to fizzle out as static started to overtake the system. Izzy just smiled proudly as he watched it.

"That would be Yolei's virus eating through the BR's website," he said as he sent enter on the email.

"We won't be able to see them anymore," Joe realized.

Yolei smiled. "Not quite. _They_ won't be able to see them anymore…"

Ken entered something into his computer before the screen suddenly righted itself again. "…but our connection to the cameras are just fine."

Tai and Matt looked at each other with equally relieved expressions on their face. Matt walked over to his best friend and pulled him into a hug.

"They're coming home, Tai," he whispered, tearfully.

Slightly choked up, all Tai could manage was, "Yeah… they are."

* * *

Next Chapter: Home Free


	12. Home Free

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon. I also do not own Battle Royale.

**Author's Note**: So sorry for the delay in this chapter, guys. I broke my glasses last weekend, and I have terrible vision without my glasses. Computers are kind of off limits without my glasses as I get terrible headaches, so I have been very bored all week. My glasses are fixed, and this chapter has been fully edited with a few rewrites (which is why I held off in posting it even though it was technically complete already).

Here we are. The homestretch. We have one more chapter to go, and it's not an epilogue. So, fasten your seat belts. You're in for a bumpy ride.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Twelve: Home Free**

Davis, Kari, and TK ran through the forest as quick as they could. TK's injuries were slowing them down a lot more than he liked, but the other two were keeping a very close eye on him to make sure he didn't overdo it. They were heading toward the warehouse that Tenchi, Mickey, and Gai were at. After they had calmed down from telling Kari about Naoki, Davis had realized that Mr Higa had told them how many survivors were left. Eight people. Them. Tenchi's gang. And the transfer students.

They came to a crashing stop when their collars started to beep. They stared at each other wide eyed, thinking they just walked into a danger zone somehow, when the beeping stopped as quickly as it began.

"W…what was that?" Kari asked, shakily.

Another few beeps made them jump again until they realized it wasn't their collars this time. TK's eyes widened as his hand went straight to his pocket and pulled out his D-Terminal. His blue eyes started to mist up with shocked tears as he flipped it open and saw over a dozen messages from Matt. Kari and Davis realized what the beeping had been and went for their D-Terminals as well.

"Tai…" Kari whispered affectionately as she looked at all of the messages in her inbox.

Davis didn't say a word. His eyes swept the email that he was reading before he let out a loud "Yes!" TK and Kari stared at him before he reached up for his collar. They yelled out in alarm, but the collar came off without a problem.

"Izzy, you're a _genius!_" Davis shouted into the air as he sent the collar flying like a Frisbee. He looked at TK and Kari who were still staring at him wide eyed before gesturing for them to do the same. "C'mon, we don't have all day."

Almost laughing with joy, the other two followed his example as they removed their collars and threw them away.

"That's one problem down," TK said with a large grin.

"Wait," Kari asked, a sudden frown on her face. "Won't Mr Higa know?"

x X x

Sure enough, the headquarters were quite aware. And they were in a panic. Every screen was flashing with a VIRUS ALERT! as data on every student started to get wiped from the hard drives. Everything was going haywire.

"Hackers!" a tech yelled. "We're being attacked by hackers!"

"From where?" Lieutenant Kuroi barked.

"I don't know!"

"Trace it!" he ordered.

The tech shook his head. "I can't! There are too many connections! I'm seeing IP addresses from Colorado, New York, Moscow, Sydney, Paris, Mexico City…" he trailed off as the list just kept growing. "Our lines are down. It's overwriting our files too fast! We're losing everything!"

Mr Higa stared at the monitors in horror. "Even our GPS tracers are frozen…"

"It's taking over, sir!" the tech continued, not even hearing Mr Higa. "The Virus is getting into our vital systems."

"The satellite feed is frozen," Mr Higa said as he surveyed the damage he could see. "We've lost main controls… Our connection to the island is completely down."

And then all of the danger zones vanished from the map.

"And there goes the danger zones…" He turned to glare at the tech savvy soldiers. "Do something!"

"We're trying!" the tech said.

"Well, stop trying, and _do it!_" Lieutenant Kuroi bellowed.

x X x

"What else does Izzy say?" TK asked.

He leaned over Davis's shoulder to get a good look at his D-Terminal, and the gogglehead didn't even mind. Kari joined them to look over Davis's other shoulder as he showed them Izzy's message, though she had to squint through the still present swelling in her eyes.

"He says he brought down the security net that was blocking our communications… Duh, Izzy! How else would I be reading your email?" Davis said, rolling his eyes.

TK nudged him to continue.

"Uh… and that there's a boat sitting in the docks that we can use as an escape," he continued. Davis made a face. "I don't know how to sail."

Kari shook her head. "Me either."

"Don't look at me," TK said when they both did just that.

Davis looked back at his D-Terminal and continued, "Oh, and he said that he would tell us how to operate it once we got there. He's tracking us with our D-3's, so don't lose them – like we ever would – and that we should head there right away. Once their computers recover from the virus, we'll show up as dead. We should be able to get out of here long before they realize we escaped."

"We can't," TK said.

"TK…" Kari started.

"What about Tenchi, Mickey, and Gai?" he reminded them. "We can't just leave them when we have a way to get off of this island! Davis, that's one of the first things you said, remember?"

Davis smiled slightly. "Hey, I'm not going to leave them behind." He pulled out his map and unfolded it so that he could read it. "Okay, the warehouse and the docks are both at the south end of the island. We'll grab Tenchi and the others, and then we'll go straight to the docks. Plan?"

TK smiled in relief. "Yeah, sounds like a plan."

"I'm going to send Izzy a quick email to tell him what we're doing," Davis said as he started to do just that.

Inspired, TK grabbed his own D-Terminal to write a quick message to his brother.

"_Love you. See you soon._

_- TK"_

x X x

The tech savvy soldiers continued to try and stop the virus from taking over their system. They typed furiously at their computer terminals while their lieutenant and the principal of the chosen school paced the floor. Anger was exuding off of both of the men.

"Is there anyone that you can think of that would be able to do this?" Lieutenant Kuroi asked.

Mr Higa stopped in his pacing to run a hand through his hair. "No. No one from this class. Especially not from the students that are left."

"Think!" the lieutenant barked. "Are you sure? There hasn't been a guess that _any_ of these kids have been learning to hack at a military level behind the school's back?"

"None!" Mr Higa snapped before suddenly stopped. "But…"

"But what?"

Mr Higa looked back at the list of survivors. "Davis, TK, and Kari…"

"What about them?" Lieutenant Kuroi asked. "Could one of them do this?"

The other man shook his head. "No. But they're friends with people who might be able to."

"Who? Give me names!"

"Yolei Inoue was president of the computer club last year," Mr Higa said. "Ken Ichijouji is a former boy genius and also quite good with computers from what I've heard. But my guess… Koushiro Izumi. He goes by Izzy, and he is one of the most talented people I have ever seen with a computer."

Lieutenant Kuroi spun toward one of the soldiers. "I want you to contact Japan _right now!_ I want an arrest warrant issued for those three individuals! I want them behind bars!"

The tech stared at her lieutenant, looking a bit dumbstruck. "Uh… Sir… we can't."

"What do you mean you can't?"

"Communications are down, along with everything else," the tech said.

The lieutenant sneered before stomping off across the room again, going back to his pacing. Mr Higa reached up to rub at his temples tiredly.

"How are we coming with getting everything back up then?"

"Nowhere, sir," another tech admitted. "As soon as we get something up and running, the virus wipes something else out. This is the best virus I've ever seen."

"I don't care if it's the best virus you've seen," Lieutenant Kuroi shouted. "Get it back up and working perfectly!"

x X x

"Please tell me you're close to finishing," Fumiki "Mickey" Ito said as he watched his friend continue to work on the rather scary looking explosive. "You realize that the warehouse becomes a danger zone at nine?"

Tenchi Arai grinned lightly at Mickey's impatience. "Yes, Mickey. I'm aware. I heard the same broadcast you did."

"How can you be so calm?" Gai Kudo asked. He rubbed his neck nervously. "When these things started beeping, I just about peed my pants!"

"Because I'm handling extremely delicate explosives," he told Gai lightly. "If I was as jumpy as you, I would have blown us up ages ago."

Gai went slightly pale. Tenchi laughed at his expression, but Mickey wasn't nearly as amused.

"If it's not ready soon, we're going to have to leave it behind," Mickey reminded him.

"Is the truck running yet?" Tenchi asked.

Gai walked over to it and gave the tire a little kick. "Back tire's a little low, but the engine's fine. Problem was just the battery. It was dead, but we charged it up in the back on the power generator. I wouldn't suggest we try to drive back to Japan in it, but we should be able to get around the island just fine."

Tenchi grinned. "Good, because that's all we need to do."

He picked up the bomb and Gai backed away a little fearful as Tenchi carried it over to the truck. He carefully placed it in the back on the truck bed. He grinned at the other two, triumphant.

"Let's go!" he announced.

Gai didn't move. "How delicate is delicate?"

Tenchi looked amused. "As long as you don't run us into a tree, we should be fine. It's an airbag detonator, Gai. It works on the same principal."

Gai wanted to argue, but Mickey pushed him toward the truck before he ran over to the warehouse doors to pull them open. Gai let loose a defeated sigh before he climbed into the driver seat and started up the truck before backing it out of the warehouse. Tenchi and Mickey high-fived each other before chasing after the vehicle. This was going to work.

"Alright," Gai said, as they ran up to the driver side window. "Where exactly are we going?"

Mickey moved to pull out his map, but he froze as he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Tenchi and Gai gave him a strange look as he just stood there, staring off toward the trees for a long moment.

"Mickey?" Tenchi asked.

"I saw someone over there," he whispered.

Gai and Tenchi sent wary looks toward the trees. They couldn't see anyone, only brush. Gai's face lit up with a sudden thought.

"Maybe it's TK!" he said. "Maybe Koreya told him where we were before he, you know…"

Tenchi smiled. "Maybe…"

But before they could continue along this line of thinking, a loud gunshot cut through the silence. Gai's head snapped forward and the two other boys were splattered with blood as Gai's body slumped over the driver side door. Mickey screamed, and Tenchi yanked them both to the ground as they hid behind the truck. Gai was slumped over the open window, his blood running down the car door in the divide between the two boys sitting on the ground, terrified.

"Gai!" Mickey cried. "Oh my god, Gai!"

Tenchi was trying not to panic as he crawled to the front of the truck to peek out from behind it. A gunshot rang out just as a bullet sailed dangerously close to his head, and he yanked himself back quickly.

"It's the transfer student," Tenchi said. "The girl!"

"Why is she shooting at us?" Mickey asked. "We didn't do anything!"

Tenchi could only shake his head. He looked around the warehouse clearing for a moment before deciding that their best bet was just to run. They didn't have any good weapons on them; they couldn't exactly fight back. He nodded to the trees directly in front of him.

"We need to run, okay?" he said.

"What about Gai?" Mickey asked.

The co-captain of the basketball team looked up at their best friend for a moment, but he knew that there was no way he was still alive. The back of his head had been practically blown out by sniper shot, and he didn't want to think about what his face must have looked like. He shook his head.

"There's nothing… Mickey, there's nothing we can do! We gotta run, okay?" he said.

Tearfully, Mickey finally nodded. Tenchi held up his hand and counted down from three on his fingers silently. 3… 2… 1… At once, both boys pushed themselves up to their feet and took off running, putting their athletic bodies to the test as they tried to run for cover. Gunfire followed them but kept missing them by inches, and for a moment, Tenchi really thought that they were going to make it. And then Mickey cried out and hit the ground.

"No!" Tenchi screamed, skidding to a stop to look back at his teammate and best friend.

Mickey looked up at him through fearfully pained eyes. "…You said we could all get off this island, Tenchi…" he gasped. "I guess you were right… it just… wasn't the way you hoped…"

"Mickey!"

But the other boy had no more to say as his body went limp and his breathing ceased. Tenchi stared in shock for a long moment before a dangerously close bullet sailed by his head. For a moment, he thought about continuing to run, but then he turned to glare at Nana Miyake. Through tears and his heart aching, he started to run back toward the truck. Nana gave a confused expression, but her smirk never left her face as she continued to hold her rifle toward his moving body.

One bullet missed. And then another. The next one hit, catching him in the side, causing him to stumble, but Tenchi did not stop. He pulled his stun gun out of his pocket as he was shot again, this time in the thigh, and he fell to his knees toward the bed of the truck. His entire body was on fire with pain, but he forced himself to the bumper before sitting down to wait. He didn't have to wait long before he heard the subtle footsteps of Nana's approach. The young murderer rounded the car and leveled Akio Sato's sniper rifle at Tenchi's head.

"Say goodbye," she said, with a smirk on her face.

Tenchi gave a weak smirk in return as he held Nana's gaze. "Goodbye."

He clicked on his stun gun and, instead of going for the girl, he connected it with a strip of wire hanging off of the bed of the truck. The electrical current traveled through the wire to the air bag detonator seated between the packets of C-4.

She never had any idea what he was doing.

And then the entire area was consumed by an explosion.

BOY NUMBER 9: GAI KUDO, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 6: FUMIKI ITO, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 2: TENCHI ARAI, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 11: NANA MIYAKE, DEAD.

4 PLAYERS TO GO.

x X x

TK lost his balance and fell to his knees while Kari and Davis just barely managed to remain standing. The ground shaking finally stopped, and the three digidestined looked above the trees to see smoke rising and the flickering light of flames. TK's eyes widened in horror at the sight.

"That's not… the warehouse, is it?" he asked, breathlessly.

Davis's grim expression told him exactly what he thought, and TK forced himself to his feet as he took off in a stumbling run in the direction of the warehouse. He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. Kari yelled after him, but it was Davis who caught him around his middle and threw him up against a tree.

"TK, STOP!" he shouted.

"Davis, let go of me! They weren't there," he denied. "You know they weren't there!"

"TK! TK, breathe!" Davis ordered, trying to hide the wavering in his voice. "If they weren't there… we'll find them. Okay? We'll find them."

Kari stepped up as she looked between the two boys. "I'll go check it out," she offered.

"No!" Davis said immediately, reaching out to grab her wrist while still keeping on hand on TK's chest to keep him pinned. "We stick together. No more splitting up."

Kari bowed her head and nodded. "You're right," she conceded. "Let's all go. Together."

Davis started to nod, but TK cut his answer off.

"What's the point?" he asked tearfully, his voice catching in his throat. "If we go, Nana or Shingo will probably be waiting for us, and then we'll all be dead. Just like everybody else…" He sucked in a shaky breath. "Everybody's dead… _Everybody_."

"TK," Davis started uncertainly, "you don't know that…"

"Don't I?" he spat. "Go ahead. Ask Izzy. Let him tell you what he saw."

Davis hesitated a moment longer, his eyes trailing across TK's face as he tried to decide if the blonde would end up running off on him or not, before he finally pulled his hand away to pull out his D-Terminal. He composed the message quickly to the computer genius before hitting ENTER as TK slowly sank back down to the forest floor. Davis and Kari shared a worried glance over his head. The silence dragged on between the three of them.

Finally, unable to take it anymore, Kari started, her voice gentle, "TK…"

Before she could say anymore, Davis's D-Terminal gave off a beep. Davis hesitated, not sure if he actually wanted to know the answer, but TK's eyes were boring into him, urging him to answer it. He let out a defeated sigh as he flipped the little device open again to read off the message. He tried to keep his expression impassive, but he must have failed miserably because TK shook his head.

"Knew it…" he muttered.

Kari looked over at Davis for confirmation, but the gogglehead was having some trouble trying to find the words. "What's it say?" she asked.

"Nana Miyake… She, uh, was the one that attacked Tenchi's group…" He swallowed thickly. "None of them, um…"

He didn't have to say anymore as Kari gave a horrified gasp. Davis stared at TK helplessly, and he shook his head in answer to Davis's unasked question. TK squeezed his eyes shut for a few moments as a few tears leaked out. Davis found that he didn't know what to do or say. He thought about Nobu and Minami; he remembered how much his heart had ached at each of their deaths. This felt different, though. This felt final. They were the only ones left. TK was right; everybody was dead.

Davis nearly jumped when TK grabbed his hand. Tears sat in the blonde's blue eyes, but he stared up at the gogglehead with a determined look. Davis pushed aside his own doubts and sense of hopelessness and nodded back at him before grabbing TK's hand and hauling him to his feet. They were the only ones left; they couldn't give up now.

"To the docks then?" Davis asked, knowing better than to bring up TK's emotional display.

TK nodded. "Let's go home."

x X x

Mr Higa stared at the monitors. The majority of the screens were still down, but the map had finally been restored. All of the students that had died were once again visible, but their control of the danger zones was still gone. Not that it mattered as the word WINNER flashed across the screen in bright red letters. He smiled as he read over the list that had died while the computers were down.

BOY NUMBER 10: DAVIS MOTOMIYA, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 18: TAKERU TAKAISHI, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 7: KARI KAMIYA, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 9: GAI KUDO, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 6: FUMIKI ITO, DEAD.

BOY NUMBER 2: TENCHI ARAI, DEAD.

GIRL NUMBER 11: NANA MIYAKE, DEAD.

1 PLAYER TO GO.

GAME OVER. DAY 2, 8:15 PM.

BOY NUMBER 8: SHINGO KOBAYASHI, WINNER.

Lieutenant Kuroi stepped up beside him and smiled. He had accomplished what he had wanted to do. He had successfully held the very first Battle Royale. He would be commended by the government. He would earn honors.

"All soldiers not working to bring the system back up, go out and retrieve all of the bodies," he ordered. "Take a copy of the map. It will be able to lead you to each of them. And grab whatever personal affects you can find. I'm sure their parents will appreciate it."

The non-tech savvy soldiers did as they were told and left promptly. Mr Higa considered the lieutenant next to him with a curious gaze.

"This isn't quite the happy ending most people would be expecting," he said.

The lieutenant looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I think everybody would have expected at least one child to return," Mr Higa pointed out. "Instead, we're letting a convicted murderer go free. Almost doesn't seem fair."

"That's above my pay grade," Lieutenant Kuroi said with a shrug. "What about the hackers? I thought your guess was that they were friends with the Motomya kid?"

Mr Higa shrugged. "I guess they didn't get to them in time."

x X x

"How are you doing?" Davis asked as they were forced to stop for the third time.

TK was starting to slow down quite a lot, and the distances he was able to run had dropped dramatically. Even worse, the blonde was looking very pale. Davis was pretty sure that these were all signs that he was not alright. But just like every other time the gogglehead had asked before—

"I'm fine," he breathed.

Davis just barely resisted the urge to strangle him as he exchanged a frustrated look with Kari. Darkness had fallen over the island once more, and Davis did not like that at all. He wasn't sure what would happen if they ended up running into any of the soldiers working on the island, but he figured that being crowned the winners was not exactly going to end up on the agenda. They were running pretty much blind except to double check every so often to make sure they were headed in the right direction. They didn't want their flashlights to attract any unwanted attention.

"No, you're not," Kari said quietly.

At least Davis wasn't the only one that thought the basketball player was lying through his teeth. And badly, he might add. He would get onto him for that later. For now, he looked over at his friend to see if he was ready to move on yet when something caught his eye. A dark stain had formed on the shirt he had given TK earlier, and the stain had an almost glistening quality to it. Davis fumbled for his flashlight before flicking it on to shine on TK. The blonde winced from the sudden light shining in his face.

"Davis!" he snapped, annoyed.

But Davis's attention was elsewhere. The stain was dark violet in color, but he knew that was just from the mixing of the blue with the _red_ blood that was seeping through from TK's shoulder wound.

Kari gasped.

TK looked away with an almost guilty expression on his face. "Look," he said, more to the ground than to either of his companions, "we just need to get back to Japan, okay? I'll be fine…"

Davis had a very sickening feeling that TK didn't really believe that.

"Sh-should we rewrap it?" he asked, a little surprised to find his voice shaking. "What do we do?"

Kari shook her head. "No… We can't. If we do that here, we could get dirt in the wound. We could make it get infected."

"We just need to get to the boat, okay?" TK said.

Davis recognized the slight tremor in the blonde's voice as fear. Swallowing thickly, he nodded and turned to Kari who looked just as scared as TK sounded. He couldn't blame her. He was pretty sure he was looking a tad pale now, too. The amber-eyed girl caught his gaze, and he gestured to TK silently. She understood the silent request and moved to TK's side without a word. She put his arm around her before the two started off again. Davis sighed and jogged forward, leading the way to the docks. They had to get home. They just had to.

They were walking through the darkness for another ten minutes. Davis could hear his two friends stumbling along behind him. Every so often, he would stop to turn his flashlight onto them just to make sure that they were still there, before he would continue. Every time he looked back, the stain on TK's shirt seemed to have gotten larger, but he knew that they couldn't stop. Stopping meant that they could be discovered and being discovered meant that they could end up dying anyway, after everything they had been through.

He wasn't going to let that happen.

Davis came to a sudden halt.

"Davis…?" Kari asked, uncertain.

For a moment, the holder of the Digi-eggs of Courage and Friendship wasn't sure why he stopped. And then he felt something wet starting to dribble down his stomach, and he looked down. An arrow was buried into the space between his ribs. He took in a sharp breath.

"…Run," he whispered.

Then, he dropped to his knees, and his flashlight fell from his hand.

x X x

Lieutenant Kuroi was back to pacing once more while Mr Higa continued to watch the progress with getting their video feed back. A frown had not left his face for a while. Unexpectedly, Shingo's status had gone from WINNER to DEAD. He knew there were plenty of logical explanations for this. Perhaps he had been wounded and had eventually bled out, or maybe he had decided to end it all after winning. But still, something wasn't sitting right with him.

"We're getting a message from the soldiers out in the field, sir," one of the techs said suddenly.

"Yes?" Lieutenant Kuroi said, stopping by the soldier's chair. "What is it? Did they find all the bodies?"

"I'm not sure," the tech admitted. "They're saying that there's something… _strange_ that you might want to see?"

Mr Higa's frown deepened. "Where are they?"

"Sector F-5."

"Do we have that video back up and running?" the lieutenant asked.

The soldier typed away furiously for a moment before nodding as the screen popped up. Mr Higa stepped closer to the screen as he saw several of the soldiers standing around, looking confused. In their hands were three collars but no bodies to be seen. His eyes widened.

"What does this mean?" he snapped.

"Uh…" the tech gulped. "It means that we don't know the location or status of Girl 7, Boy 10, and Boy 18."

"Let me guess," Lieutenant Kuroi growled, "Kari Kamiya, Davis Motomiya, and Takeru Takaishi?"

"Yes, sir."

"_Find them!_"

* * *

Next Chapter: Uprising


	13. Uprising

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Digimon. I do not own Battle Royale. FOR THE LAST TIME!

**Author's Note**: Here we are. We made it. The end. There will not be a sequel. So, this is really it. _Blurring Boundaries_ will now be getting updated once again. So, if any of you are a fan of my writing, you may want to go check out that story. But this is it. Some of you may be disappointed by the ending. Some of you may find it satisfying. And others of you may love it. I hope, no matter how you end up feeling in the end, you at least...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen: Uprising**

TK and Kari's eyes widened in alarm, and Kari moved to run to his side when TK saw something. The flashlight was still on, and it came to a rolling stop as it rolled away from Davis's limp hand. The beam of light shined on a figure up ahead. TK recognized him immediately, and he tackled Kari to the ground just as an arrow went flying through the air, right where her head had been. When TK looked up next, Davis was no longer on his knees. He had collapsed fully to the ground.

"Davis!" he shouted.

The gogglehead didn't stir. TK looked beyond him to see Shingo hobbling his way toward them, the crossbow in his hand and katana on his back. TK knew that they couldn't stay out in the open like this, but he couldn't just leave Davis. Shingo raised the crossbow again, and TK forced himself to his feet with a painful wince, pulling Kari up with him, before he dragged her through the trees. An arrow slammed into the bark behind them.

Shingo sneered as he missed the blonde and the girl that he was pulling along. Considering his "heroic" actions earlier, he definitely hadn't expected him to leave his friend behind, but he supposed it made sense. He had been protecting the girl all along, not the boy. Speaking of the boy, Davis was still very much alive. He was holding onto the arrow protruding out of his body, trying to keep it steady as he sucked in each agonizing breath. The orange-haired murderer smirked before deciding that if he couldn't kill the blonde, he was going to at least enjoy this moment. He dragged himself over to Davis.

"Pathetic," he muttered.

He pulled another arrow out of the quiver and moved to reload the bow in his arms. Davis, however, just smirked weakly up at him.

"I dunno," he gasped out. "TK seemed to have gotten you pretty good there."

His eyes were on the bloody stump of a foot that Shingo was being forced to drag behind him. The convict growled deep in his throat as he got the arrow in place and raised the crossbow to point it down at the burgundy-haired teenager. Davis's smile never wavered.

"Go ahead," he said. "You might have gotten me… but you'll never catch them. TK won't let you."

"They left you behind," Shingo pointed out, a cruel smile on his face.

But still, Davis did not seem concerned. "Good. They knew that's what I would have wanted."

Beyond pissed that he wasn't doing much to wipe that triumphant smirk off of the boy's face, Shingo decided enough was enough. He aimed the crossbow at his forehead and put his finger on the trigger when he suddenly heard the sound of a cocking gun. His head snapped up in surprise as he saw TK Takaishi standing there in the shadows, a small silver pistol that originally belonged to Anna Yoshida in his hands. He was pointing the gun at Shingo, and though his face was deathly pale, his hands remained oddly steady as he kept his target in the crosshairs.

Shingo moved to lift the crossbow to point it at his new target, but he never got the chance. TK pulled the trigger, and his aim was steady and true as Shingo's head snapped back with the force of the bullet. For a moment, TK swore that the orange-haired man almost seemed genuinely surprised before his body crumpled to the ground. TK's wrists jerked up violently from the gun's recoil, his fists just barely missing his face, but he never noticed it. He was already running toward Davis before dropping by his side.

"You shot him," Davis said weakly, looking shocked.

"Don't hate me," TK whispered.

Davis just shook his head. "You saved my life."

"Not yet, I haven't," TK said.

His expression crumpled as he turned his gaze onto the arrow still embedded in the top of Davis's stomach. He looked up to see Kari standing there, looking at Shingo's body with a shocked expression, before turning that same pale face to Davis. She shakily moved to kneel next to his other side and cupped his face.

"We're going to get you home, okay?" she said.

"Never mind about me," Davis said. "You two need to just go."

"You're insane," TK interjected. "We're not leaving you, so don't even try to ask us to do that."

"I don't think I can get up," Davis admitted, wincing in pain as he tried to do just that. "And you can't carry me, TK… And I know you can't, Kari… Just go. Both of you."

"Shut up!" Kari snapped suddenly. "We're all going home, and that's that!"

But TK's face was starting to read a bit of uncertainty. Davis was right. He had no idea how they were supposed to carry the soccer player all the way to the docks. TK was already injured, and Kari wasn't exactly the strong woman of the class. What were they going to do…? TK's ears suddenly perked up.

"Wait," he whispered. "Do you hear that?"

Kari and Davis stared at him for a moment before Kari's face broke out in a relieved smile.

"The ocean," she gasped. "We're there. We're right there!" She grabbed Davis's face and stared down at him. "Davis, you can do this. Okay?"

He looked like he still wanted to protest, but the determination in Kari's gaze couldn't be denied. Shakily, he gave a small nod. She gave him a watery thankful smile before looking him over, and her eyes fell on the arrow still in his chest once again.

"I… I need to, uh…" She took in a deep breath. "This is going to hurt."

Without giving him much time to brace himself, she reached out and snapped off the end of the arrow. Davis cried out in pain as the arrow was jostled from the breaking, and TK reached out to give him his hand for something to squeeze. He regretted it instantly as his teeth gnashed against the pain as Davis practically crushed his fingers in his grip.

"Sorry, sorry!" Kari said, throwing the part of the arrow away that she had broken off. "I just… I didn't want you to fall or run into anything and make it worse."

"I know," Davis hissed out, his jaw tight and his eyes watery as he tried to get his breathing back under control. "I know."

They gave him a few more minutes to rest before Kari nodded to TK, and the two of them got to work. Kari put one of Davis's arms around her shoulders and TK (ignoring his own pain, lightheadedness, and injuries) went to his other side to do the same before they holstered him up. TK gritted his teeth against the agony, and Davis cried out, unable to keep his hidden. They started through the forest, following the sound of the waves, as it got louder and louder. Finally, they broke through the line of trees and headed toward the wooden docks where they could see the boat in front of them. It was tied to the dock, practically glistening in the moonlight that shone above them, calling to them. This was their way to freedom, their chance to get off the island and get back home free from harm.

Kari led the way onto the boat where she helped lower Davis gingerly down onto the deck. As soon as Davis was down, TK collapsed next to him, sweat running down his face as he gasped for breath. Kari tried not to panic as she abandoned the boys on the deck of the boat to jump back out and untie it from the dock. Both of the boys were going scarily pale in the face, and every movement was rushed in an effort to try to get them help faster. She was trying very hard not to focus on the facts, like how she had no idea where they were going to sail to or if they would even be able to find help once they got there, but it was hard. She wished Yolei was here to freak out for her so that she could be the calm and rational one.

She ran back up to the helm and pulled out her D-Terminal to read Izzy's instructions that had been sent to her as she revved up the boat's motor and started off. She was almost shocked by her ability to steer the boat, but right now, she had other things to focus on other than her natural sailing skills. She looked over her shoulder at TK and Davis worriedly.

"Guys?" she asked, almost afraid she wasn't going to get an answer.

TK pushed himself up with a groan against the railing, and he turned to look over at Davis who seemed to be studying the stars. He almost smiled at him before he looked past the boat to the view of the island that they were leaving behind.

"It's actually almost beautiful," he whispered.

"It's a graveyard," Davis said.

TK nodded solemnly and turned to look up toward the front where Kari was steering. He smiled tiredly. "How's it coming, Kari?"

She let loose a breath. "It's okay. I'm just going to keep going straight until we hit land. Izzy's instructions were pretty good. How are you two doing?"

"I'm wondering why I never studied astronomy," Davis said distractedly. "Then, at least, I'd have a better idea of what I'm looking at."

TK craned his neck to look up at the stars as well and offered a small smile. "I know one constellation."

He looked at him. "Which one?"

"Right above our heads there," TK said, as he pointed toward it. "The stars that look a bit like a cross. You see it?"

Davis looked up at the sky for a moment before nodding slowly. "I think so."

"It's the swan," TK said. "You can see its wings, its long neck, its tail…"

"The swan," Davis repeated, a smile on his face. And then he laughed, suddenly. "Actually, I do remember something."

"What?"

"Beneath the swan, that little cluster of stars there…" He paused for a second. "It's an arrow."

TK lapsed into silence for a moment before frowning. "Is there a bullet up there, too? Because that doesn't seem fair."

Davis laughed before his laughter dissolved into painful coughs. TK watched his friend worriedly, but every limb in his body was starting to go oddly numb and cold. He couldn't even consider the possibility of going over to comfort him. He seemed so far away despite being so close. TK realized that this could very well be it. Maybe their promise to each other had been foreshadowing after all.

"Izzy just sent me a message," Kari said over her shoulder suddenly. "They know we escaped!"

But TK didn't turn to look at her. His eyes were looking over the back of the boat again where he could see a bobbing white light getting brighter and closer with every passing second.

"…And they're coming after us…" TK said.

Davis looked up and cursed under his breath as he caught sight of the boat speeding after them. He looked over at TK, and they shared a worried look. Both of them were too weak to even try to think of a plan. And from the sound of the revving engine, they knew that Kari was making them go as fast as she knew how.

"Maybe…" Davis started. "Maybe if they only find one of us on board, they'll declare them the winner…"

TK turned to look over at Davis, and he caught his eye. He knew what he was thinking, and he turned to look over the side of the boat. Did he have enough strength to throw himself overboard? Maybe… If he focused on nothing else… He and Davis had made a pact, and he knew that it was time to fulfill that pact.

"No!" He turned to look at Kari. She had left the helm and was now staring at the two boys with a tearfully angry expression on her face as she stood there. "You two don't think I know what you've been doing? Trying to protect me? Well, it's my turn, and I am not letting either of you give up your lives for me. We're going to get out of this."

From the boat's loudspeaker, they suddenly heard an announcement: "_You in the boat, cut your engines now! If you do not comply in thirty seconds, we will take this as a sign of hostility and treason, and we will open fire! Cut your engines, and prepare to be boarded!_"

"Kari, we can't outrun them," Davis pointed out. "This might be your only chance."

"No!" she said. "I am not cutting the engines, and I am not going to let you guys do something stupid just for me!"

"Then what do we do?" TK asked. "We can't outrun them; we can't surrender. We don't exactly have a lot of options."

Kari stood there, speechless for a moment, when the silence was cut by gunfire. She shrieked and hit the deck, and the boys pressed themselves flat to the flooring as well, both of them crying out as they jostled their inflamed injuries.

"I guess our thirty seconds were up!" Davis gasped.

They winced, hearing the bullets ricocheting off of the metal haul. Kari nodded toward the hatch next to TK and shouted over the sound of the gunfire, "Let's go below deck!"

TK didn't question it. He reached forward and lifted the hatch with his good arm before lowering himself into the small storage compartment. He crawled out of the way as Davis gingerly tried to follow, but the other boy couldn't even stay standing and he crumpled to the ground. TK winced and grabbed Davis's arm to pull him out of the way as Kari lowered herself into the compartment as well. She shut the hatch over her head, and they could still hear the gunfire echoing on haul for a minute longer before it stopped.

"They're going to board any second," Davis pointed out. He dropped his head into his hands, looking pale and shaky. "Man, what I wouldn't give for a Digital Port right about now."

Kari's face lit up. "That's it!"

TK shook his head. "Kari… none of us have a computer on us, and Izzy said the closest Digital Port was in the Philippines."

She shook her head. "That's not true. We don't need a computer, TK."

Davis blinked. "I am feeling… really dizzy right now, so maybe my brain is just moving a little slow, but what is she talking about?"

TK stared at Kari a moment longer before smiling. "When we were first taken to the Digital World… we were just swept away… And the second time, we used our digivices to open a portal in the middle of the sky…"

"Oh, I remember," Davis said. "But… the Digital World was kind of right above you. How does that help us now?"

"We've opened portals to other worlds out of thin air," Kari said. "Why not the Digital World?"

TK smiled weakly. "It's worth a shot."

Davis forced himself to sit up as he pulled out his D-3. He stared at the face of it for a long moment, the face of Veemon flashing in his mind's eye, before he nodded. "Alright, let's do it."

Kari pulled out her D-3 and TK mimicked her movement before all three of them held their digivices in front of them in a circle. They had no idea if this was going to work, but it was their only chance.

x X x

Aboard the ship that was in pursuit, several soldiers stood along the edge of the boat, assault rifles aimed at the boat. They were taking no chances. They knew that these kids had just been in a 48 hour long bloodbath, and they were not going to become their next victims if they could help it. The boat kept speeding along as the military ship lined up next to it. They could see that nobody was above deck.

"What would you like us to do, sir?" one soldier asked.

The commander in charge looked it over before nodding. "Destroy it."

Already prepared for that order, two cadets approached the side of the boat, carrying a grenade launcher. They aimed for the boat's fuel tank and waited until their boat had pulled away a bit before they fired. Later, each of the soldiers would talk about the mysterious white light they had seen just seconds before the missile hit, but they would never think much of it.

Why should they?

x X x

9:00 PM in Tokyo. Midnight on Battle Royale Island.

Nine digidestined sat around the room just staring, wide eyed, at the screen as they waited for some sort of sign of _something_. They had long since lost visual sighting of Davis, TK, and Kari, but they had definitely seen the military personnel chasing after them in the cruiser. All they could do is watch the digivice signals on Izzy's map as they got further and further out to sea… Until all three of their signals disappeared.

"What just happened?" Tai yelped, jumping to his feet.

Matt couldn't even seem to find his voice.

And then they heard a crackle of a radio; they were still wired into the military channel, allowing them to hear everything that they said over their internal communications.

"_The threat has been neutralized, Lieutenant."_

"_Did you collect their bodies?" _

"_No, sir. The boat sank after we blew it up, but I will get a dive team out here immediately to see what we can find." _

"_You do that, and you report back to me with your findings."_

"_Yes, sir."_

Tai collapsed back to the ground, silent tears running down his face as they realized what he was hearing. They were dead. All three of them, _dead_. Matt didn't make a sound. In fact, the entire room was deathly silent for several long moments before Ken dropped his head into hands and let out a sob. The girls started to follow his example, unable to keep it in any longer.

"What the—?" Izzy suddenly yelped.

Then, before anyone could ask what he was talking about, he leapt out of his chair just as his computer exploded with light. A second later, Kari tumbled out of the screen and hit the ground on all fours. Everybody stared until Tai finally realized what he was seeing.

"Kari!" Tai ran to his sister and pulled her into a tight hug. "What are you…? How did you…?"

"Where's TK?" Cody asked, staring at her with wide eyes.

"And Davis?" Ken echoed.

As if those questions broke Kari out of her amazed trance of being in her brother's arms once again, she pulled away and threw herself at Joe, grabbing his hands in her own.

"Joe!" she gasped. "You've got to come! You've got to come to the Digital World! I didn't… I didn't think they could survive another trip! Please! Joe, please! You've got to help them!"

The words took a moment to sink in for the shocked doctor-in-training, but once they did, he was off of the sofa. He ran to the desk and quickly scrawled out two phone numbers on the first piece of paper he could find before he pushed the paper into Sora's hands.

"Call my dad and my brother! Get them to the Digital World, even if you have to drag them there yourself," he ordered. Then, he turned to Kari. "Let's go."

Kari tearfully held her D-3 out. "Digi-Port Open!"

Not wanting to be left behind, Cody, Ken, Yolei, Matt, and Tai all jumped forward with their digivices, and they were all swept away by the digital field that exploded from the computer. For a moment, the leftover occupants of the room stood there in shock. Sora jumped into action first as she ripped the paper down the middle and gave one half to Mimi.

"I'll call Jim," she said.

"I'll get Joe's dad," Mimi said.

Izzy slowly sank back into his chair as the room emptied of the two females. "And I'll see what the government's next move is going to be…" he said to himself.

x X x

Two days later, Izzy sat in front of his computer, trying to track government intelligence on what they were going to do about this entire situation. Davis and TK were still in the Digital World, not quite strong enough to travel yet as they recovered, but Dr Kido with his sons' help were able to perform emergency lifesaving surgery on both of the boys. The digimon had been pretty furious to find out what was going on in such a dramatic fashion. They had been in the middle of a game of soccer with the babies of Primary Village when a bleeding Davis and TK had been dumped into their laps with a nearly hysterical Kari.

Now, all of the digidestined were feeling guilty. But after explaining how tirelessly they had all been working to try to help their three friends get off the island, they understood why telling them had just not come up. Well, most of them. He was pretty sure it was going to take a little while before Patamon, Gatomon, and Veemon forgave them. Not wanting to put any of them through that horror again, Mimi, Sora, and Joe had taken it upon themselves to fill the digimon in on what happened.

Izzy was pretty sure he had never seen the digimon look so frightened before. He dropped his head into his hands tiredly. He had ended up breaking down and crying to Tentomon while in the Digital World. He hadn't even realized how much the pressure had been weighing on his heart until the moment he realized that TK, Davis, and Kari were okay. It was almost enough to make him sick as he realized how easily it could have been the other way instead.

The computer genius's head snapped up when he heard his name on the television that was playing in the background. He leapt to his feet and ran into the other room just in time to catch the news story playing on the screen.

"_Kari Kamiya, Davis Motomiya, and Takeru Takaishi are presumed dead after a failed escape attempt from Battle Royale Island two days ago. Their accomplices in this escape are believed to be Koushiro Izumi, Yolei Inoue, and Ken Ichijouji. All three are wanted for questioning in relation to the murders of all forty students who were selected for the BR Act as officials believe that these three may have rigged the game from the start. If anybody sees these three individuals, inform the police immediately, as they may be extremely dangerous." _

Izzy stared at the screen, shaking all over. He was wanted for murder, and it wasn't just him. His friends were, too. And he knew that if they ever found out that TK, Kari, and Davis weren't dead, they would be on that list as well. They had escaped off that island where they had to fight for their lives, and now they were being accused of murder. He looked over at the picture of his parents sadly for a moment before grabbing his digivice.

He wasn't going to let that happen. He walked over to his computer and held out his digivice to it. Even if it meant that he and the other digidestined had to remain hidden until he figured out how to reverse this, he would. But until then, he would continue to do what he did best and keep everyone safe.

x X x

_**Two Years Later…**_

"I miss Mom," TK admitted quietly.

Matt sighed sadly and pulled his little brother into his arms before pressing a kiss to the top of the 16-year-old's head. Patamon and Gabumon looked on sadly, knowing that they couldn't really say much in the way of comfort to that statement. The brothers had been living in the Digital World for two years now. Matt hadn't necessarily needed to go into hiding with him, but no way was he going to force his little brother to go through this without him. Tai had felt the exact same way. In fact, all twelve digidestined now took up a temporary residence within the Digital World. Only Sora, Mimi, Joe, and Cody were able to leave the Digital World on a regular basis without causing too much suspicion as their families were the only ones not under surveillance.

"I know you do," Matt said. "But we'll get through this. I promise you we will."

TK gave his brother a grateful smile. He knew he shouldn't complain. He could be dead or incarcerated right now, but sometimes he couldn't help but think that maybe everything would have been easier if they had just died on the Island. It was a morbid thought, but it was one that he couldn't help having from time to time. He turned toward a joyful whistling coming from the kitchen, and he rolled his eyes as he saw Davis and Veemon moving in sync. The gogglehead looked happy as rain.

The digimon had been too kind in building them a home for all twelve of them. It made their stay here in the Digital World just that much more bearable, but it didn't make it any easier to forget. He caught Kari's eyes from across the room, and he looked away with a blush. After everything they had been through, how to deal with crushes still simply eluded him. Sometimes, it felt like his social skills were going down the drain thanks to his semi-isolation. Then again, that could have just been the awkwardness of puberty.

A bright flash of light from the television in the living room caught their attention, and Sora appeared a moment later with a grim look on her face.

"What is it, Sora?" Biyomon asked, running up to her partner's side.

Sora let loose a sigh before showing off the newspaper in her hand. Yolei stepped forward to take it from her before she let out a sharp gasp.

"_Round 2 of Battle Royale Begins Today_," she read off.

Kari and TK went pale as Davis dropped the spoon he had been holding to the floor.

Yolei swallowed shakily before continuing, "_The 11th grade class from Hirano High School in Osaka has been chosen for this year's Battle Royale. Forty-two students will enter the battle zones, but only one will leave if any leave at all. Check the Battle Royale website every six hours to find out how the students are doing._"

TK, Kari, and Davis turned to look at each other. The horror of the battle was hard to forget, and they knew that coming out of that battle alone would have made it a lot worse.

Izzy stood solemnly and nodded. "I think now's the time."

"Time for what?" Tai asked, looking a little shaken.

He pulled out his laptop and started to type away at it. "To give fuel to the Uprising."

The Uprising. The protests that were held around the world by the other digidestined to try to pressure Japan into social change by making their governments do something. For the most part, they had been ignored the last two years. But as the twelve isolated digidestined and their digimon gathered around Izzy's computer, they saw him bringing up the video feed of the former Battle Royale.

"You still have that video?" Kari whispered in shock.

Izzy nodded solemnly. "I knew one day it would be the right time to release it, a time when people would actually listen. I think now's the perfect time." He brought up an email to Willis and started to attach each of the files. "And in the meantime…" He smiled suddenly. "I say let's make this game as difficult as possible for the people in charge."

Yolei and Ken grinned at each other before nodding.

"Let's do it."

* * *

The End.


End file.
